


Background Noise

by shadow_in_the_shade



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Emotional Abuse, F/M, Incest, Manipulation, Mental Institutions, Triggers, emotional disturbance, let's face it, this ain't a healthy ship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-04-28 13:06:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5091842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_in_the_shade/pseuds/shadow_in_the_shade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Very little plot, well okay no plot. Just some twisted Sharpe sibling pwp; currently turning into a selection of porny snippets. Tagged for non - con for past trauma, but I've come to see the Sharpecest relationship as pretty near consensual, at least where sex is concerned so I'm writing it as such. Enjoy. :-)</p><p>Title and starting quote both from Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “What are you thinking?  
> How are you feeling?  
> What have we done to each other?  
> What are we going to do?”

**1.**

 

It starts in so many ways. She has her back to him as she plays and he watches the back of her neck, the curve of her hairline, and wants to touch. She’s so contained; so still, aside from the fingers that fly across the keys; but he knows how soft she would feel to touch and he does. He comes up behind her so quietly she would have been startled if she did not always know exactly where he was, where he had been, where, to the moment, he was going to be.

She smiles when his fingers trace around her hair, his hand on her shoulder, more possessive than he knows. She smiles up at the portrait on the wall- _see, mother?-_ because every time this happens she feels a little bit like she has won. He steals the smile from her when his hand slips around to cup her breast, so gently at first she almost makes a sound and loses her place – just for a moment, skipping a note or maybe three- and he notices, and this time he is the one who smiles and his voice is low in her ear when he whispers –

“ _Keep playing.”_

And she does, and it is not just at the piano, and she smiles because she understands a challenge better than almost anything. She is good at games but she wonders when he became such a match for her. She knows she is lost if she makes a noise but she closes her eyes as her fingers skim the keys, and oh she tried so hard to be a stone, to carve herself out of black marble, but she is soft in his hands as the sinking red clay. The barest hint of his fingernail scrapes her nipple through the velvet and she cannot; she hisses and stops and he is remorseless, in her ear again –

“Start again. From the _beginning._ ”

Her lip curls. She almost growls, but her heart is smiling like only he can make it and she sighs, clenches her fist, stretches her fingers out again and resumes, her voice as idle as she can make it –

“Where did you ever learn such wickedness?”

“From you of course. You know it was. It’s always you.”

She hears those words _always you_ and clasps them to her like a talisman. He does not let her glow in its light for too long, bending over her to nuzzle and then kiss the back of her neck. She closes her eyes and carries on playing, wants to ignore everything so as to finish at the same time as wanting simply to delight in him and nothing else. The piano suddenly seems like a curse on her. And his fingers are working deftly at her throat because he knows this dress too well, knows how to break her out of it without even having to look and she cannot even blame him for any of his damnable skill when she knows she taught him all of it.

“You’re so close to the end –” he whispers as she reaches the last part of the piece, and she cannot help but feel a thrill of something rather like pride to know how often he must have listened and paid attention, always perfectly attentive to what she does without the interest ever getting in her way or being unwanted. She smiles, but then –

“Wouldn’t it be sad if something made you stop now?” he adds wickedly, as one hand slides down inside her corset. She makes a strangled sound that is not entirely ladylike and almost says something terribly vulgar. She stops herself just in time, knowing that in this mood he could easily consider it an interruption worthy of making her start again. He pries her laces apart at the back until she breathes out hard, pushing her breasts into his hand, wanting to hate him and never capable of that. Anything but that.

“When you get to the end –” he tortures her so calmly, twisting his spare hand into her hair and loosening it steadily and deftly – “I am going to fuck you senseless”. He drops it out so casually she has to grit her teeth to keep from screaming.

“You will scream –” as though he can tell; she supposes he can – “I’ll make you scream so loudly even _she_ will hear”. She shudders to hear something so uncannily close the way she always likes to imagine it and rushes through the last few bars with angry, trembling fingers, twisting around violently on the piano stool the second she is done and slapping him in the face. It was either that or kiss him and she had as little awareness of what she had been about to do than he had, because he blinks at her; shocked, but not that much, and catches her wrist hard before she can do it again, his other hand still in her hair and pulling now just enough to hurt a little but never too much. He scrambles awkwardly into her lap, kissing her not awkwardly at all, with trembling, hungry lips and she pushes all of the anger and frustration he has built up in her into the kisses she gives back.

She can feel his cock pressing hard against her and her fingers itch to take it in her hand but he is still intent on meanness, holding her hand tight even though he wants her so much, she can see it in his eyes. She can see an answering blackness in her own eyes reflected in his and not for the first time she wonders disjointedly which of them is which; which parts are hers and which are his. She tries to remember what she sometimes knows – that they are all hers.

For a moment she almost says _please_ but he will not let her without serving her an excuse to do so, whispering instead _beg me_ as he dips his head to her breasts, spilling them out from over her laces, his breath turning the nipple hard as he takes it gently in his teeth. She shakes her spinning head, knowing that she will anyway, almost whimpering as he licks and nibbles at her and her _please_ comes out in a rushing sigh.

“Please _what?”_

“Please fuck me brother, please I –”

But it is enough and she has never known him capable of waiting too long. He lets her go and she falls to the floor like water, no sooner on her hands and knees than he is behind her. She can feel his hardness against her and the groan he makes with more than just breath and he starts to say something but the only word that comes out is –

“Always –” She knows he wants to carry on the game, to mock her for giving in so fast – _always so desperate,_ she knows should have been his sentence but she likes _always,_ there is no way in which she can interpret that one word that does not sound good. His voice wavers and breaks and he pushes into her in one long shove, thrusting into her rough and shuddering and just for a second she swirls apart and comes back together and she comes back together _right._ As if this could be the one thing in her life that is _not_ wrong, in defiance of all logic and it’s impossible to think or know anything beyond her brother being inside her, again, where he should be. But she makes herself speak, to let him know at least that she is not coming undone, whether she is or not, she hisses –

“Now who’s desperate?” as though he _did_ say that out loud and he forgets or does not know that he did not because he never needs to speak all of what he means for her to always know what the rest of his line will be. She wrote his life’s script out for him long ago but just for now he cannot care either, because she is all there is and he cannot get close enough even now. He pulls her back by the hair but she follows so quickly it never hurts; she can know, just for now, that he will never hurt her, never lie to her and as she sits back she finds she is staring right up at their mother again and she trembles as though she could come just from the victory she feels right now, but instead her lips just curve and she thinks _yes mother, take a good long look;_ thinks it so hard she might have said it aloud.

She arches back and his face presses into her neck, his arms winding around her, holding her close, as close as  they could possibly be and when she too soon begins to shake in readiness he pauses inside her long enough to whisper out half broken orders –

“Wait – not yet – together – always together –” he moves inside her, fingers stroking between her legs and she breathes out her echo –

“Never apart,” - pushing into his hand, her body shaking and tense and singing out in relief so hard it is almost pain and he comes only seconds behind her, coming into her hot and wet as blood and she looks back at the picture on the wall hoping that between them they can scream loud enough to reach the grave.

And after he slips out of her, she stays in his lap with her head against his chest and just for a moment he strokes her hair and she feels quite small, almost as though he _could_ look after her, as though she could relinquish some degree of control. But she knows she cannot, even when he lifts her in his arms like a bride or a child and carries her to the fireplace.

The nights are long here, spare logs piled up high in readiness and there are already blankets piled up themselves by the fire from the number of times they have fallen asleep down here.

__x__

**I really have no defence for this ‘ship other than it being hella hot. :-P I have tagged it as non –con even though it’s not necessarily in this instance. I think from the nature of the relationship and how it all began it has to be always considered as dub con at best. But I did want to write something that puts Thomas a little bit more in charge of things than I know he really was, make it a little bit more mutual perhaps because I like to think he didn’t 100 % hate it. But uh yeah, I feel bad as hell for writing this and worse for posting it. I may write more. :-)**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**This is a sort of “what if….” idea I had, set whilst Thomas is on the search for wife no.1. We saw so much in the film of Lucille being a jealous little potato that I really wanted to play with it being the other way round, whether you think that would happen or not (I'm totally here if anyone wants to debate!). So here. Is total porns.**

 

 

 

They don’t speak from the moment he abruptly turns to leave right up until they get back to the hotel. She follows him out of the ballroom in angry silence and they refuse to make eye contact as the carriage rattles down the cobbled streets. Occasionally he will look up when she is not looking, see how thinly pressed her lips are, how narrow her eyes, and his gaze falls back to his hands, trying not to twist them in his lap. She looks at him when he looks away, wanting him to feel the weight of scorn in her eyes.

“I can’t,” he says, as soon as they are alone. She follows him into his hotel room and stands in front of the door with her arms folded – “I can’t do this”.

“Yes,” she says coldly. “You can”. He notices she does not even sound like it pleases her. He shakes his head, not knowing what to say.

“What exactly –” she says, with a calm that worries him, pulling off her gloves as she speaks in a set of precise tense movements – “Is it you can’t do? Attract a girl or marry one? It certainly seemed to me like you had your pick of any woman in the room.”

“I can’t – I’m not – I don’t feel _anything_ –not for any of them –”

“ _Good._ At least that’s something.”

“But I couldn’t – _marry_ someone I don’t –”

“Are you ill, Thomas? Have you lost the entire plan and purpose of this venture? You’re not marrying for _love_ and if I thought for one moment –” Lucille’s lip twists in a sneer that goes all the way to her eyes – “I’d kill you both without a second thought.”

“But I’d have to – there would be things I had to do – as a husband and I can’t – not with –”

For the first time she smiles and her face almost relaxes, for a second at least;

“You do _not_ have to. Besides you’re lying. I saw how easily you flirted with half those girls tonight.” She gives an injured sniff and turns her back on him, forcing him to come towards her, to come quietly and a little remorseful.

“Sister you know I –” he reaches out a hand, but she turns around quickly, knocking it aside.

“I don’t know _anything_ Thomas, until you show me! For god’s sake, sometimes I think you should be the one in the dress! Maybe –” her voice changes, dangerously – “Maybe I should marry instead, hmm? Maybe you’d like to be the one to watch while I make love to some stranger –”

“No –” he whispers, looking up at her fully for the first time, a fire in his eyes that she smiles to see; she has been trying to light it ever since they got back. She smiles because she knows she’s got him now.

“Maybe I should,” she murmurs – “Maybe I should be the one to dance and smile and trade kisses to win a man’s affection and fortune –”

“No,” he states again, fiercely this time.

“I could. I know how to deal with men. Maybe I’d let them touch me like only you do. And of course I wouldn’t have the options after marriage that you would, would you like that better brother? Would you?”

“No!” He growls it this time, grabbing her arm and pushing her back against the wall – “You’re mine, nobody else touches you, not ever, you’re _mine.”_

She smiles triumphantly because she knows it, of course, she just wants to hear him say it; it is worth every moment of baiting him to make him respond in a way that actually scares her a little. He pins her to the wall with just one hand around her wrist, locking an arm around her neck to yank her face to his as if she ever wanted to move away, kissing her furiously, angrily, as though his claim really needs to be reasserted.  She rubs his cock through his trousers, feeling it wickedly hard against her, wondering when that happened. He told her once he was never otherwise when she was anywhere nearby but she supposes that has to be an exaggeration and does not believe it. He hisses at her touch, fingers fumbling at her throat, impatient to get to her skin. Her clothes are always such a nightmare he is miserable with need by the time he gets them apart, sick with it, nuzzling, licking, biting at her throat and shoulders, dizzyingly nauseated at the thought of other hands than his on the soft pale skin.

“I’d kill them,” he whispers, snarling it into her ear,  “anyone so much as laid a hand on you I’d cut it off, butcher them and fuck you in the mess, again and again I’d fuck you - until you break.”

“I don’t break.”

“Then I’d try harder.”

He pushes her dress down around her waist and when he moves back to take off his shirt she wriggles out of it. He can never work out how she does that, shedding her clothes like a snake shedding skin. She carries a small sharp knife inside her corset which she uses now to cut open the laces at the front and he watches, hands working mechanically on his own clothes as he stares at her transfixed. She carries spare laces everywhere she goes. He watches her skin emerge, her breasts come free, and reaches for her so like a child that she almost laughs. But then he lifts her into his arms to carry her to the bed and it surprises her for the thousandth time that he can do this, remembering a time when she could pick _him_ up. Now he looks down at her adoringly and just a little sad, and she reaches a hand to cup his face, to take the sadness away. He shakes his head;

“You will never let me just be good, will you?”

“Oh little brother –” she whispers taunting, into his ear, nails digging into his shoulders – “Dear, sweet little brother, you talk so hard about being good but you always call me sister when you want me – I’ve heard the sick things you say when you’re inside me –”

He growls softly, slithering on top of her, crushing them together, hot skin against skin, sliding the full length of his cock against the wetness between her legs;

“Now,” he insists. “I need to be inside you now, oh god sister you’re so wet for me.”

“You’re so hard for me, fuck – put it in me brother, slam it in, destroy me –”

He gives a groan as he shoves into her that is almost a shout, her body taking him in so perfectly it is as though they were made for each other, and they worked out long ago that they were. Buried deep inside her, he can no longer keep a hold of any of those ideals to be good, cannot keep a grasp on anything beyond his cock in his sister’s cunt. He thrusts and thrusts savagely, holding her by the hips hard enough to bruise, even now needing to be closer, knowing he could come in her in seconds whilst wanting to stay inside forever.

“And - “ she carries on. “If I let someone else do this to me –” it is worth it – she knew it would be – worth it even if it were only to see the way his face contorts;

“Bitch,” he slaps her- it is as much as he will ever really hurt her;

“I’d kill them –” he growls, almost hopelessly into her throat – “I’d kill you – fuck you until you were dead and still not stop, you’re mine Lucille, only mine.” He slams into her with almost feral brutality and her one hand strokes the back of his neck in a curiously comforting gesture whilst the other rakes scratches down his back. They both balance on an arc of perfection, shivering in the bliss of being together, crackling in bittersweet understanding that completion is close, wanting it and not wanting it to be over all at once. When it comes it is cataclysmic and the world shakes with trying not to scream. He slams his hand over her mouth and only this reminds him that he cannot scream either; that the hotel walls are thin, even if it is only her unused room on one side.

Afterwards he lies with his head nestled into her hip, his hand tracing spirals across her thigh.

“I’ll do it,” he says.

“I know,” she replies.

“You shouldn’t make me jealous like that.”

“I will though.”

He presses a kiss to the top of her leg, lips coming away wet from the both of them.

“I’ve made a terrible mess of you.”

“Yes” she smiles. “You should clean that up.”

He smiles against her skin and dips his head.

__x__

**I don’t know if Thomas would really get so jealous if their roles were reversed but I kinda think he would, I certainly _want_ to think he would!**

**Also who heard that g.o.t moment where I almost had Lucille quote Cersei? I could almost hear her do “I should wear the armour – and you the dress”. But then I remembered she said that to Robert not Jaime so it was a bit less relevant. :-) Ugh just imagine the Sharpe/ Lannister double date with those four – Lucille and Jaime high fiving and shouting “THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE”. I’m sorry. I am ill, all my fandoms are bleeding together in a big incestuous heap. :-P**


	3. Chapter 3

**Angst and porns! This one’s hella traumatic I guess. In which Thomas says something stupid and Lucille goes to a bad place and also, weirdly - graphic porn! Trigger warnings for mental health concerns, references to past abuse, rape, institutionalisation, and trauma reactions to these - the whole works essentially, you have been warned – just cause I like upsetting myself doesn’t mean I want to upset the rest of you!**

“Sometimes, I don’t think you love me at all.”

She turns away with an injured sniff – and it looks so staged, whether she means it or not, and she probably does but that does not make it better – that it annoys him. Otherwise, he knows he would not have said what he did. But she does this so often. Not quite every day, but every argument they ever have, she manages to bring this out- and just because he does not doubt that so much of it comes from a place of terrible fear and concern does not mean it does not grate on him. More than grate; it has the sting she intends every time, because after all he loves her so damn much. It tears at his heart like an animal inside and hearing it denied makes him speak thoughtlessly at best.

“Lucille, that’s crazy!”

As soon as he says it he knows what he has done and he closes his eyes and cringes, but it’s too late; he’s said it now and he can taste the bile in his throat from his words. It no longer matters what she said, what they had been arguing about in the first place; he should not have said it. He sees her freeze, no act this time, her hand stills in mid-air for far too long, something twitches in the side of her face and she is frozen stiff for several beats too long. What did he do? Why did he say that? He has made this mistake before and she went still for so long he started to become afraid he had lost her.

Eventually she blinks, turns her head just a fraction, but she does not really look at him and there is nothing in her eyes. She has not come _back_ from wherever his stupid words have pushed her, and the absence is chilling to hear in her voice when she replies through tight lips;

“Is it? Good night, Thomas.”

She walks very sedately towards the door, head just a little too high, and he watches her for a second with worms in his belly before calling to her before she walks out the room;

“Lucille don’t! I’m- I’m sorry –”

“Are you?” She blinks again slowly, once; it is like being studied by a mantis; he thought it would be better than her icy restraint but it is not – “ _Are you?”_ She shrieks it this time, face twisting in a terrifying contortion. “Tell me Thomas how could you be possibly be sorry when you don’t even know what the damn word means?” He frowns for a second before he realizes she means _crazy_ not _sorry,_ although he suspects she does not think he is really that either.

“I didn’t mean –” his heart sinks. Going on is not going to help him.

“Didn’t mean _what_ Thomas? You didn’t. Mean. _What?”_

Saying what he was meaning to say is a vile option beneath those eyes, and she is running silent tears through her fury which only makes it worse. But staying silent is no better.

“I never meant _you_ were –” he closes his eyes – “Just that what you said was –”

Dancing round the word is a thousand times worse than letting it slip.

“Well –” her lips curl, twitching at the same time – “That’s alright then.” She sneers. “Open your fucking eyes Thomas. I’m going now. You can look at something _nice._ ”

He does, but it is already too late and she is gone. He hears her foot-tread creak on the stairs and imagines he can hear her swallow a sob though no further sound escapes her.

-x-

He sits by the fire for a long time, feeling nothing of its warmth and sightlessly watching it die. He cannot bring himself to do more than poke it to speed its eventual ashy crumble. He sighs as he rises, heart heavy, unsure quite where to go. In theory he has a room, though he never uses it, but can he go to their shared bed now? He wonders if she will be asleep, crying, silent and still, unsleeping in the dark, missing him or wanting him there or curled around herself with a knife to stab him with if he got too close.

She would not hurt him. He knows that if nothing else. He decides he cannot possibly make things worse by trying.

The room is dark but for a candle burning on his side of the bed. He almost stumbles on an angry pile of her clothes beside the bed. He can see the shape of her, curled into a ball with its back to him but cannot tell if she is asleep or pretending. He crawls into bed, wearing just his shirt, turning his face to the spot it belongs against her shoulder. She flinches slightly, stiffens all over again, and it is almost worse than if she had stabbed him. He starts to put an arm around her and she makes a sound like a little whimper. He knows it is his fault but it breaks his heart when she edges away from him. She must be clinging to the very edge of the bed. He does not try to get closer for some time.

Lucille stares straight ahead of her into the dark. It is not quite the darkest kind of dark and the candle flame reminds her where she is. She used to leave a light for Thomas when they were little and he was afraid of the dark and she tells him nowadays that she does this still out of habit, not liking to admit that she is the one who wants it. She likes shadows and fluttering dark shades, but absolute blackness is intolerable. It makes her prickle until it feels like her skin is tiny knives sticking out all over like a hedgehog’s spines. Someone is always watching her in her dark, something is always about to happen. She is all spines and pins, she can practically feel them breaking out of her skin. When she moves away it is at least partly so that Thomas does not get hurt.

Not that he would not deserve it. Not after what he called her. The spikes flick inwards sometimes, stabbing and prickling through her chest. She supposes she can take that rather than hurt him; she has taken so much else after all. She tries not to think about it. She is trapped in a cage of thinking about it. There are moths in her head, beating heavy wings fast and thundering against the inside of her skull. She lies still for a while, as still as she can be; she taught herself back then to breathe quietly, not to be noticed, and she does it again almost easily whenever something sends her back there. She can feel him watching her in the dark, trying to work her out; she can feel it in every nerve, tingling with crawling tension. She reminds herself where she is, who he is, who she is; they come to her in that order.

“Go away, Thomas,” she sighs eventually; just on the point of his reaching out to touch her, though she only half knows it. It would be best for him not to be around her now, best for her too– she supposes, if she could get any grasp of herself as a separate entity.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I want –” he touches her shoulder with tentative fingers. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, does not flinch.

“What?”

“I just want to make it better”.

“You can’t.”

“Lucille –”

“No.”

“Turn round”.

It hurts so much, her head; it hurts so much, all the moths and noise and screaming and tension and alone. But alone in a cell is better than visited in one sometimes. Bright and then dark and bright again, she is not sure what that is ever supposed to achieve. Silence can be so loud, solitary can be so screaming, blistering white and sanatorium green. Colours can be so _loud._ It’s not safe to move, best to stay still. It’s not safe to breathe. Alone in the smallest room with nothing there to distract the addled brain, _that_ is the thing that addles the brain _._ She wonders how long it will be. If she will ever leave.

“Lucille –”

But she _has_ left, hasn’t she? She’s been home two years and more, she should be done with this by now. Nobody there ever said her name like that, touched her like that. Not a single sensation in the place that was pleasant or kind. But she’s not there now, she’s not, she’s _here_ and he is here and didn’t they promise each other that everything else was just background noise? She turns over slowly; it feels like such effort and it was _years_ ago but she can feel the bruises again like yesterday, and everything hurts. She turns but she cannot look at him, just buries her face in his shoulder and she might be crying but she does not know.

“I –” she says but she does not know, and he strokes her hair and back and cheek and he might be telling her everything is alright, will be alright and she knows he did not mean what he said, that he knows she isn’t crazy really and she should have stopped doing this years ago it’s just a stupid _word_ it doesn’t mean anything.

But it does.

“Tell me,” she whispers “Tell me you love me.”

“I love you.”

He says it so easily, she wants to doubt it, wants to suspect it, knows she _should_ be suspicious but there is enough of her left that trusts to grab at it hungrily.

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“Tell me you need me.”

“I need you.”

“Tell me you want me.”

“I want you.”

“Again.” She knows he does, can hear it in his voice, feel it in his hands and lips and cock, but she needs to hear it again.

“I want you Lucille. I need you. Every inch of you, please –”

“Every inch?” she echoes bitterly “every horrible injured inch?”

“You’re not horrible, sister –”

“You know what they did?” she cannot stop; she would never normally do this, never hurt him with the knowledge but god sometimes it has to out or it will scald a path out from her chest, searing and tearing her flesh – “They beat me. They raped me. They hurt me, so many times, hurt me with their chains and canes and cocks – why would anyone want what they spat back out? Why would you –”

“How could I not?”

It is so obvious to him, so simple. She closes her eyes and breathes and wishes it _was_ simple. He kisses her forehead, eyelids, the corners of her lips, running down her neck, following with his hands  and _this_ is simple, easy, yes, she gives herself to it as she gives herself to music, carried by and controlling it all at once.

“If I could just kill them all I would,” he growls it, furious, vicious, loving her so tenderly, trying to kiss her, throat and breasts and belly, everywhere at once, kiss every scar and make it better, every beautiful scar – “Anyone who dared touch you, my beautiful sister –”

He slips a hand between her legs when they open with an instinct she does not quite realise she has, stroking her there almost without thinking, as she has touched him so many times to comfort and arouse and he smiles to feel her respond, to know she wants him too, that he can maybe make it better and he is so hard for her now and she is not afraid anymore, not gone; but she started to come back as soon as she started to cry and now she is here, and he is here, and that’s _good,_ the only good thing she can find.

“Beautiful –” she echoes in almost innocent, wide eyed disbelief.

“Yes,” he promises, “So beautiful Lucille, so lovely –”

“You want me –” she says it slowly, almost as though catching up.

“Yes,” he groans, “Yes, god sister so much.”

She curses, the pleasure of hearing him say it is such a sudden feral thing; he jerks against her, almost spilling himself to hear her say _fuck._

“Fuck yes, put it in me, brother, please, slam your cock in me, make me come, make your sister come, get your seed all over me, drench me with it –”

Impossible for him to hear an order like that without needing to be inside her in a moment and he is and it is all he can think about; his cock in her cunt, such fierce urgent hardness bathed in the soft warmth of her, plunging in and out over and over again, long savage thrusts that sink him to the hilt inside her and she clings to him, limbs winding around him like vines, whispering affirmatives in a rapid litany into his face as he kisses her fiercely at the same time. For once his eyes are open and hers are closed; because she cannot look at him just yet and see how perfect he is, it is enough to feel it, to remember what pleasant sensations felt like. She can swim in the sensation of it, his hands, his tongue, his cock inside her and they can be almost close enough to bring her back to herself. She could almost know what it felt like to be whole and more than half wishes they could stay joined like this forever.

He looks at her though, and it crushes at his heart to know that she cannot see how beautiful she is. He cannot even tell her and have her know it for longer than in that instance. And then the thought of anyone having ever touched her with anything other than perfect reverence and devotion kills him. But he cannot hide from it, cannot un-see her scars. All he can do is put kisses in their place. He can hide from a lot but refuses to be weak enough to ignore all she has suffered for him; he wishes he had a fraction of her strength, or could have taken a fraction of her pain. He cannot, but he can give her this pleasure to rub it all out, at least for a while.

It is giving, it is also taking, back and forth one to the other. She feels powerful when he is inside her, and also something like his equal; they cannot be different at this time, not even two creatures, and he is the same, stronger, more like her, twisting together until they cannot know where one starts and the other begins.

“Stay,” she whispers in his ear. “Stay inside me forever”.

It is forever; at the time it is always forever. It is also far too little time, painfully short moments. But release is so sweet, she is flying with it, beating her wings against the bed, heading towards the candle flame and he is with her, beside her, inside her, part of her always flying with her, always together –

“Never apart,” she whispers as they fall, together, twisting awkwardly as they roll into the sheets, so they never have to separate.

“Never apart,” he echoes. She lives in fear of the place in which her echo does not come back to her, but for now she is done being afraid of places; there is nowhere else than here.

“Again,” she says and does not have to wait long before he can make it so. She breathes out in blessed relief that he can always understand her without her ever having to say more than a few words of the relevant sentence.

After the second time, they lie, cooling in the sheets, she lies half against him, head under his arm, as though she has wriggled up beside a curiously shaped cushion.

“Are you –” he says – he wants to say _better, alright_ but they both will not quite do.

“I’m here,” she says, and that is better. He rubs circles in her forehead, gently at first but she wriggles and smiles and murmurs –

“That’s – nice”. He knows how she has always told him there are moths in her head when it feels strange, when something hurts, when she goes away inside herself, there are always black moths there when she comes back. He has never been entirely certain the extent to which she means this and still does not quite know how to ask. Instead he just strokes and rubs at her head to make them go away.

“Moths?”

“Hmmm,” she nods – “Not as many as there were”.

She says that when he rubs her head they come out of her ears and when they are gone her head is less full, less cluttered, confused, hurting – all the emotions that bash around in there on buzzing wings. She closes her eyes and smiles sleepily and he keeps rubbing. There will always be one or two that get away she says, but he can keep trying all the same.

__x__

**So the original plan was just hot argument then sex but then it all went angsty, I am sorry, hopefully the end result ain’t too much of a big mess. This is very much from my own experience of getting triggered and my knowledge also huge hatred of institutionalization. I do figure everybody elses reactions will be individual to them but yeah, for me, this turned into a bit of an exploration of what can happen when seriously triggered. I also appreciate sex is not generally a great idea under these circumstances, but when have these two ever done things right? I’ll try and write something less awful next time. :-)**

**Random fyi, I have bees, not moths, but obsly I gave Lucille moths because duh. They do go out the ears when rubbed away though. :-)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Urgh so this is literally just pure trauma and angst, no porn even this time I’m sorry - set just before the trip to America, just after Enola, but with flashbacks. So many trigger warnings – madhouse awfulness, rape, abuse, depression, social anxiety, animal slaughter and a briefly referenced dead baby towards the end – just getting a heap of Lucille’s madhouse years feels out of my system so I can move on to cheerier things later! It really is just a pile of grief, feel free to skip, normal service really will resume next instalment. :-)**

 

“So” she says, brightly “What more have you gathered about our Miss McMichael?”

“Well” he smiles, with a misguided attempt at levity – “She’s not very pretty, is she?”

He had meant it as a sort of joke, something to cheer Lucille up, but the look she gives him is so withering he deflates at once, knowing how forced her brightness is, wondering why she bothered when he knows how tense and strained she is, how much she hates these social gatherings.

“What more have you gathered that’s _useful?”_ she amends, tersely, as though talking to a child. She always does this. Sometimes it irks him, but never that much, he probably deserves it and he finds himself, at this moment, as so often, in tune enough with her mood not to react to it. She sits down wearily on the side of his bed, rubbing her forehead very slightly in a jerky two fingered gesture he often notices when she has had to deal with the world. He wanders about the hotel room, hanging their coats up, fixing things here and there.

“Well she’s rich” he nods, this was after all, the main pre-requisite “From somewhere quite new in America, a little place in New York state. New money of course, but they all are over there. She has an older brother – but it seems like she’ll still inherit the family fortune, he seems to have made his own, he’s a doctor, she said.”

He catches the scowl that no sooner flickers on Lucille’s face but she suppresses it;

“I don’t like doctors” she shrugs just a little, pushing it off quickly, but not before he has noticed and felt that little stab of pain for her he feels so often. There is that sudden distance in her eyes as though she could at any moment fall away from him, back into the past.

_She fought them all the way to Lancaster. By the time they reached the asylum gates they had already branded her “difficult”. It took four of them to get her through the front door and from there straight into solitary in restraints. It should have been enough but they beat her when she was down just to make sure. Later on that first evening the doctors paid her their first visit._

“I know” he stops pacing and sits down beside her. For once he has picked the best thing he could say; it pulls her back and she turns to him with a faint smile.

“It’s not important. It’s not as though we’ll have to get to know them for long.”

“There is just one problem” he decides he may as well come out with it now. She looks at him silently – _go on._

“They go back to America in a week. I don’t think it’s enough time.”

She stands up angrily, giving a disgusted little breathe out.

“It’s not.”

_They put her to work in the gardens with a huge great monster of a man who pushes her down in the flowerbed one day and rapes her. He is stupid and clumsy and brutal, but he knows how to do this one thing, cramming his cock into her leering and grinning while she lies there dead, sinking into the soil, her body no more than fuel for the broken flowers. She had thought she could have liked working out here._

She’s here, but she’s elsewhere. It troubles him when he knows the other place hurts her, has been there through her nightmares and the tears she does not know she lets slip in her sleep. She will so rarely talk to him about it later. All he can do is stop her, bring her back when he can.

“What do you want us to do?”

It’s the right move, he knows, putting it in her hands like this right now, because she nods, her clenched fists soften and she stands still, quiet, thinking for a moment. A not quite happy smile twitches ruefully at the corners of her lips and then she turns to him –

“Thomas, didn’t you always want to see the New World?”

_They punish her for the broken flowers later, punish her for her filthy behaviour. He cannot help it of course, but she should have known better. They beat her for being a slut, telling her  she must love it as they rape her again. She supposes she must like it, after all she never cries any more. They make her work with him until the job is done and until it is he rapes her every day, knowing that he can, and she lies still and absent, dying with every thrust, smelling the wet leaves and the soil, turning her head into the earth, imagining sinking down, down beneath the compost, flowers and grass growing over her, turning her face away into the damp and earth and choking on it, wishing she could go all the way away. She imagines crawling back up out of the grave, hands and mouth full of this earth and she thinks dear god, when I die, let me not come back, let me not come back. Then, every night the doctors do it again, they hardly need an excuse anymore, how many young, highborn girls do they have after all?_

“Well I – spoke of it – but you – I mean – you wouldn’t –”

She smiles, sits back down on the bed, beside him now, takes his hands in hers and draws his head down to her chest. Even though he is not the one who needs comforting right now, he knows that this helps her more than if he had tried to make it the other way around.

“I used to see the sea” she murmurs – “On a clear day you could see all the way across the bay, when they let me out – I used to think of being lost on it, a tiny thing in a vast space. Frightening – but – it felt like being free, just to imagine it. Wind in the sails, drifting but with purpose – like we always sing –” It is only ever her who sings, but he does not correct her. She does not stand correction well these days. He thinks it is far too soon to be travelling again. She has been so sad since Enola – well it was not Enola making her sad; there is a tiny coffin in the back of his mind that he cannot bring himself to think about. He tried to tell her to give it more time, that they could live off Enola’s fortune for longer and they _could_ have done but she struggles to stay still these days, even though she hates to be out of the house at the same time.

“There is nothing I would not do for you” she says and he knows how true it is, he supposes he must be ungrateful to feel guilt over the things she does, he should be gratified to be one of surely few people in the world to know for sure that their love would kill for them. She sounds almost proud of it.

_After that they put her on a stint in the slaughterhouse, she could only assume as some kind of added punishment. The idea that this might faze her has her laughing all the way there, like the mad woman they so clearly want her to be. It is a punishment, has to be, she is the only woman in the place, but for once it is not a problem; quite the reverse in fact – they only put the safer inmates down here of course, and besides nobody makes an unwelcome move on a girl with a cleaver in her hand; and when they see the look in her eye that accompanies it, they stay doubly away. It is here that she learns to enjoy the killing. She looks the animals in the eye and does it hard and fast. It is a kindness, she thinks, a strength that nobody around her has – none of them would look her in the eye when they were hurting her. She comes to enjoy the swing and thud and crunch of the cleaver and close her ears to the animal cries of pain. How could she not enjoy it? It is making her untouchable, something she has not been seen as since she arrived. Even outside of the slaughterhouse, she begins to see people looking at her with a wary kind of respect. Or maybe it is not respect, just a kind of fear – she could not entirely care. Even the doctors and the staff begin to change towards her, seeing her proficiency in this task as some sort of proof that her “treatment” is working. It seems that murder, first seen as her madness, was now being regarded as her rehabilitation. She realises, as she had not fully before, how insane that makes them, how woefully inadequate they are. All her old insecurities and self-loathing begin to run side by side with a sense of superiority far crazier than anything she had entered the place with._

“I know” he says and would say more but she says again –

“Everything I do is for you, you know that don’t you?” He moves against her, curling into her, holding her as she holds him. He does know of course, she has told him so many times. He wants to tell her the same, but fears she would look at him like he did not mean it and he can just imagine how inadequate it would sound, instead he just replies –

“I know. I love you Lucille.”

She smiles properly for the first time that night because, in all the lies that twist up her heart and that she feels tugging at his every promise, this at least is true. It has always been true and always will be. And of all her own utterances she can only quite trust herself to make this one.

“Yes. I love you too.”

Because they fall together, falling in place, his hand against her chest and his eyes raising to hers. When he kisses her it brings her all the way back, beyond recent tragedy and awful long ago memory. It is the one thing that can hold her in the present, that can bring her back to life. It is, she thinks, like a fairy tale, the very core of how those stories work. When he kisses her she can be the heroine for once and not the villain, she can be the girl he sees her as; she can almost, if she closes her eyes, be beautiful. In amongst every other aspect of her this one thing will always be good, and beautiful. Perfection.

__x__

**Okay yeah I literally said last chapter that the next would be less horrible but I lied. On the plus I have two chapters started, neither of which are of the distressing kind so when I say next time we’ll be back with some merrily scheduled porn I DO mean it!**

**I should quickly explain that I have my own definitive head canon that the institution Lucille ended up in was Lancaster’s Old Moor Hospital, the first and largest psychiatric asylum in the north west of England. Nowadays patients from the Cumbria (Cumberland) area still get sent to the replacement facility built in its old grounds so it’s not a huge stretch to think that Cumbria people might have gone there 100 years ago. Also I used to be able to see the place from where I lived for years in Lancs so it’s something I can work with. :-)**

**<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2385890/Lancaster-Moor-Hospital-photos-eerie-look-derelict-19th-century-hospital.html>   (should anyone be interested)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Okay, brief explanation, I started writing a sort of _first time_ chapter and this was gonna come straight after it, set chronologically just after, but I’m struggling with that chapter so jumped straight to this one instead. So this is when she’s eighteen and he’s sixteen and they’ve not been long back at Allerdale. Porn.**

**5.**

 

That sweet first time opens a floodgate he knows can never be closed again, as long as he lives. He has always loved her, he knows this, but now he finds himself violently, achingly, frighteningly in love with her and with it a lust he cannot begin to control and that no amount of fucking her will quench. He is sick with want, has to have her, day and night, touch her everywhere, rip off her clothes, fuck her and fuck her and fuck her, sometimes hard and desperate within moments of coming inside her.

She delights in it. She had been so afraid, so uncertain – what if he wanted her and she could not control it? Oh dear god, what if he did not want her at all? Her fears seem ridiculous now. She does everything she can to quietly encourage him, whilst leading him to half believe she is just tolerating him. She can kill him with a glance. She wears nothing beneath her dress some days and makes sure he knows it; it feels like the height of decadence to roam the house so wantonly. She leaves evidence of his lust on her skin so he can smell himself on her, see her face streaked with his seed and remember the sweet loveliness of her mouth on his cock. He finds her reading in the library, _Manfred_ again – he was always embarrassingly scared of Byron but she has no such caution, of course – he only has to see her there to drop to his knees in supplication to his goddess, she smiles at him and it is an answered prayer.

And then it is her on her knees, nuzzling her face into his crotch, licking and mouthing him through the fabric and he has to yank his trousers open and feed her his cock. She tilts her head back, letting it slide down her throat gloriously. He has to hold off from coming straight into her, just the sight of his thick cock disappearing into her beautiful beloved face and she never stops looking up at him as she sucks on him, with those big liquid eyes. She watches him all the while, she pulls back to suckle maddeningly on the head; he can see her tongue work him and feels like he might break from it. She is so good he tortures himself with the idea that she has practised on anyone else and shoves his cock back all the way into her mouth in a fit of possessive lust. She chokes just a little, enough for him to come in the instant, eyes closed, groaning, hands twisting in her hair.

-x-

He looks at her throughout the day, every inch of her precious skin hidden in those far too binding clothes. His body sobs for her, cock groaning against his trousers; his hands crackle electric with the need to touch her.

“Lucille,” he says and she turns, eyes widening at the way he looks at her, the hunger in him; not just his eyes, his face, his whole body feral and throbbing and ready for her, every muscle in him tense with lust. She is instantly aroused by the nakedness of his need and the way he says her name, already a plea. She smiles; he could die a little every time she smiles.

“I need you,” he says and she knows it already, her hand cupping him through his trousers and he comes in them in seconds at her touch, only half apologetic, hard again in seconds –

“I need more,” he whispers, clutching at her, scrabbling at her dress – “I need all of you, all of your sweet body, my beautiful sister.”

“It’s –” she smiles, whispers, “it’s the middle of the day.”

“Yes. Let me take you to bed,” she laughs with almost real pleasure;

“And you fucked me all night.”

“Yes,” he remembers, over and over again, they had torn strips off each other in ferocious scratching need. Just remembering makes him harder. They did not get to sleep until dawn and he woke up hard for her again.

“I can still feel you inside me.” She whispers this one right in his ear. He growls, really growls, low and feral, swings her into his arms and practically marches her into the elevator. He pushes her back against the grate as it goes up, kissing and touching her hungrily.

Somehow they make it to her room; his hands shake, it hurts to let go of her even to tell her to get undressed. She looks at him, smirking, a little amused that he would order her like that- a _little_ amused, but mostly the request goes straight to her cunt. Still she does not act as instantly as she knows he would like, it makes her head spin to make him beg her and she knows that he will and –

“Please,” he amends – “Please Lucille, I can’t wait.”

She knows he would never force her but dear god, she does not quite know what he would do if she did not get out of her dress now. She had no idea the faint concept of him being rough with her could excite her so much, even after everything, but it does. She wonders if this makes her broken but does not care for long. Still, even with wanting him as much as he does her, she makes herself take her time, makes herself drive him insane waiting for her, watching her, transfixed by her. She has never felt more powerful, not even when she killed mother. She lies back slowly, never letting go of his look as he gazes at her, almost disbelievingly.

 _Mine_ he thinks, hardly able to believe he could deserve it – _she is mine._ She reaches for him when he slides up her body, kissing a hurried, desperate path from her ankle to the base of her throat.

“You’ve changed,” he says “I want to learn everything, I don’t want to miss one inch of you.”

She was so afraid that he would hate her. That she would look too different for him to love again. She still wants to cry when he proves to her that it is not so. It is so unlike anything she has known for years, every sweet and pleasant sensation feels strange still, but she craves them all with a thirst that frightens her and pushes her on all the same. The first time he thrusts into her he does not even have time to get undressed, finding time between the first and the second and then taking fresh delight in her skin against his and he holds her so close, as close as they can be and they try to vocalise this need, the need to be closer, to be so fused together that nothing will separate them but it falls apart and all they can do is fuck again.

He tells her he loves her, buried inside her, and afterwards, tenderly, gasping for breath, his head between her breasts as she runs her fingers through his hair, humming softly. She sings to him as he tells her again and at the end of the song she kisses his head and echoes him.

They sneak downstairs later that evening to find dinner, surreptitiously like they used to when they were small and so scared of being found out. Sometimes they had been found and she had, as always, taken the full force of the punishment that followed; no point in trying to remind anyone that they had been forgotten all day, left in the attic with no food. Even after the beatings she would creep back down later to at least find something for him. Even now, the heart still remembers and as they cross through the hallway he stops suddenly to ask –

“Why are we whispering?”

She stops too, realising that she is clutching his arm and that he has still asked the question in a whisper.

“I don’t know,” she says, then says it again, forcing herself not to whisper this time, though it feels strange and daring, almost terrifying.

“I don’t know,” she looks at him and he looks at her, matching eyes frightened for a second before her face breaks into a grin and his follows and they start to laugh, nervous at first but growing louder, laughing to fill the house, just because they can.

“Brother,” she says, as they sit at the table, eating more than they need to, again because they can – “We are going to reclaim every corner of this house in every possible way.”

He looks at her _– every_ possible way? She grins and nods, he is not sure he has ever seen her so happy, it is deeply infectious.

“We’ll start tomorrow,” he smiles, holding her hand across the table. A light shines in her eyes, so innocently, playfully wicked; he had not been sure he would ever see that light again. She pushes their plates asides and sweeps around to sit on the edge of the table in front of him, drawing him to his feet, to her, turning her face to kiss the palm he lays against her cheek –

“We’ll start _now,”_ she says.

-x-

 

**I’m determined to find at least one happy head canon for these two so I’ve decided that in the first few years after being reunited, before the money started to really run out, they had quite an amazing time of it. As such I have at least two more chapter ideas for some Reclaiming Of Allerdale Hall which should follow shortly. I also really AM gonna finish that first time chapter at some point, I promise, I’ve just run into a bit of a block with it. Hence some more random porning. :-)**

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

**One evening on the voyage home Edith notices Thomas has some very interesting scars. If blood and knives in a consensual sex scenario are not your thing please keep 100% away! (oh in case that made it sound like this is remotely Thomas/ Edith – it’s not.) :-)**

 

It was a mistake he determined was not going to happen again, and he could not help but think he had only just got out of it; and then, not very convincingly. But he had forgotten to lock the door and Edith had just come marching on in. In future he decided he would keep it locked.

It was the second night of the voyage home. Well, Edith thought, home had to be the right word even though she did not quite feel it. But she had got over her sea sickness with remarkable ease, and was feeling more careless than she had since her father died. It did not occur to her to think twice before walking unannounced into her husband’s cabin as he was getting ready for dinner. Why did men take so much longer at this than women, she wondered; women had so much more to deal with and yet – she had just sighed and gone straight in. She supposed that even though he had insisted they take separate cabins this at least would be alright.

From the look he gave her it clearly was not. He started when she came in, half dressed, shirt in hand, with a look like a startled deer. The alarm in his eyes was so intense it almost frightened her;

“I’m sorry – I’ll `–” she began but she noticed she was making no move to just leave as she was about to say she would. She wished she could behave better but she could not stop staring at him; hair slightly damp still from a bath and falling into his eyes, the shape of his chest and shoulders as she had never seen it before. Not for the first time, but certainly the strongest, she found herself wishing he would be less damn considerate of her mourning.

And then he seemed to recover, something closed in his eyes and he forced himself to smile –

“It’s alright, I won’t be long now,” he was already hurrying into his shirt and she was just about to relax when she frowned –

“Whatever is _that?_ ”

There was a strange scar, she noticed, on his chest to the left, she frowned and instinctively took a step towards him; curiosity, she supposed would always be her downfall. The scared look came back in his eyes but he masterfully kept it out of his voice –

“Oh it’s – nothing –” he was fastening the shirt up quickly – “An accident – with the machine back home”.

It would have been hard to judge which of them heard the lie the more obviously. It was excruciating to his own ears and he felt himself close his eyes, almost wincing. If she had looked closer, which thankfully he had not given her the chance to do, she would have seen that it was not one strange scar but five small ones, tiny intentional flicks of a knife wielded with delightful precision. There was a small but definite _LS_ engraved just above his heart; it had been there for twenty years, and any time it showed signs of fading he was the one who went begging for it to be re-made.

His insides churned just imagining telling Edith the truth – _yes, it’s an old scar, consistently refreshed, my sister made it. Yes, I have her initials cut into my chest. Don’t worry, she has mine as well._ For a moment he looked up and saw the honest innocent curiosity shining in Edith’s eyes and looked away again quickly, cheeks burning, suddenly overwhelmed with too many thoughts to fit in his head.

_He remembered the first time she had done it. They had talked about it already and decided how it was to be done in advance. She did not want to hurt him, she said, not really; she could not believe that he would trust her. He could not believe that she would not trust herself, he trusted her so completely. He wanted her to hurt him this time, wanted the marks she had already put on his heart to be made visible. He wanted to give her the same, to taste her blood as it trickled down her skin. He wondered if it would taste exactly like his own. She had smiled and agreed, remembering how long his fascination with blood had gone on, surprised now she thought about it, that he had not asked for this sooner._

_He remembered, too vividly for just now, every detail of how she had looked; she had straddled his lap, one hand curled around his neck, the softness of her hair and underskirts all around him, her breasts pressed against his chest, the little knife in her hand pressing cold and flat against his leg as she kissed him and he reached back for her greedily, always so hungry, so wanting. He was overawed as he so often was by her; she destroyed him every time the shutters came off her eyes and he could see all the sorrow and fire and madness inside. He knew that she was letting him see this and that it was more intimate even than her near nakedness and the hard press of his cock against her leg. He knew he would never deserve her or ever do half as much for her as she had for him. He could only love her helplessly, leaning back just a little and baring his chest to her knife. He had taken her hand to guide the point of her blade to the very place he could feel his heart beating below the skin._

_“Trust me,” she whispered._

_“Always.” She kissed him on the forehead and the point of her knife dug into his skin. She hummed their lullaby whilst she administered her cuts and it was the sweetest pain he had ever felt, his hands were fists destroying the sheets around them and by the time she had finished he was almost crying with the need to be inside her. She leaned back, away just a little, smiling and shaking her head, turning the knife and placing it in his hand. She looked at him and did not need to tell him everything it meant; for years after they had been reunited she would not let him even near her with anything in his hand that might hurt her, however much she knew logically that he would not- it was an instinct for self-preservation that was hard to shake even a little. When he looked a final confirmation at her she nodded, guiding his knife as he had hers, the same number of little cuts into her skin and she found herself whimpering with pleasure more than pain, moving so he could sink inside her so easily as he bent his head to her breast to lick and suck at marks he had made. She rode him as he tasted her, his fingers digging into her back and she cried out louder than he had ever heard her, tears of delight running unchecked down her face. It seemed to her that this was something she had always wanted, to nourish him from her body in any way she could and her hand curled around his head as he fed from her and she was rocking with him deep inside her, she had never felt more complete, she never wanted it to end._

_It did end, it had to, and she came screaming and hearing his muffled cries against her breast. He would always remember how she had smiled when they lay down together, curled into each other. She had rarely looked so happy and she patted him tolerantly when he still reached to lick blood from her skin._

_“Was it?” she had said, not quite able to breathe yet or form a whole sentence._

_“Was it what?”_

_“The same as yours? You said you wanted to know if our blood was the same.”_

_He smiled and raised his head to hers;_

_“I don’t know,” he said “Try it.” And he had kissed her with the taste of her blood on his lips and her head had swirled in a delirious, delicious glowing fog and then just being tangled up together was still not close enough and he was hard for her again, inside her again and his hands trembled just a little even now to remember._

He made sure to catch Edith’s eye again, to stop himself becoming light headed at the memory, indeed to push the memory away and offer an arm to the girl –

“Dinner?” he smiled brightly, too brightly, he was sure, but if she had not fallen for it she did not say. She took his arm and they stepped out on deck.

She told him later that he had seemed a million miles away all that night and he was. He remembered, as they went to dinner, coming over on the boat with Lucille; how she had been mourning just as Edith was now, though it had not been a mourning she could display. It never stopped hurting him to see her sad and it was only the smallest of consolations that Edith at least could be more easily cheered up. Later he would be able to tell her he was homesick, though it was not entirely true.

He missed his sister. It was almost unbearable. He supposed he only got through it, knowing they were on their way home. But every night on the boat he heard her voice in his head and whispered _Never apart_ in reply to her in the darkness in the almost certain knowledge that hundreds of miles away she was doing the same in their bed at Allerdale Hall. He remembered the speech he had given Edith, about being connected, and felt the pull of this other connection tugging at his ribs. They were too far now almost for him to keep breathing; he had said it all as though he had meant it only because he had been thinking of Lucille and it hurt him to know that even as he had said those words to Edith his sister had been on a boat drawing further away from by the moment, feeling the exact pull that he spoke of at her heart. 

_My love,_ he whispered to the shadows, for sometimes it almost did not matter that she was anything else, just that he loved her, and had been in love with her for years whatever else she was. But it did matter, he knew, she would never stop being his sister as well and he both wished it were otherwise and did not want it any differently all at once. He had wished so many times that they could both marry and share the same blood that he had tasted from her so many times.

Whatever they were, he traced the scars on his chest, knowing that they could never be erased from his heart, nor his from hers.

__x__

**So, the initials thing is something I now totally head canon, and honestly I don’t know how anyone can read the Sharpe’s biographies and _not_ come away thinking Thomas has a major blood kink. :-) Enjoy.**


	7. Chapter 7

 

**This chapter is the first in what will probably be a three part leading to the first time sex scene as promised, tentative warning for underage since Thomas is sixteen, which isn’t underage where I live but I think is elsewhere. :-)**

 

“You’ve grown,” she says after a beat of space too long, too strained, too closely observed by the people who brought him back here.

“So have you,” he smiles shyly, and she would kill right now just to know what he is thinking. Does he even want to be back here? Did he miss her? Is she how he remembers or too different? Did he miss her, did he miss her, did he miss her? It has been tearing at her for four years, thinking that he could have been happy without her, knowing that it is wrong of her to hate the idea so much. Knowing that you’re _supposed_ to want the people you love to be happy, or so she has been told. And she wants to want that but she doesn’t. Not without her. If he was happy without her she is not sure which of them she would kill first. She hopes he has been miserable for her every day like she has and she hates herself for it at the same time as she does not care.

And _now._ They let her come back here alone; well she was grown up now and heir to it all, they could not keep her anyway. She has not decided yet if it is good or awful to be back, there are so many memories here, so many of them terrible. But it’s good, she decides, it is good. It is not the asylum and _he_ is here and didn’t they have good memories too? So many. But there are people, adults she does not know with him, watching them too carefully; she is sure it is too carefully, and is suspicious of them all. She hates them too for looking at him like they have anything to do with him. Nobody should; nobody _can,_ not really. She tries to remember, to imagine how it is they would like her to behave but she is looking at him and trying to take him in and for too long she stands there and cannot.

Because he has changed _so much._ He was a boy when she left him last, crying while she fought and screamed. He was just a beautiful boy, and now he is taller than her and his body has changed and she was not there for it and it is breaking her silently to pieces. She does not know what to do with the man he is fast turning into, only what she wants to do and she knows at least from that that she has been far from _cured_ if cure were possible for love. She had thought, on the way, she might be afraid to be thrown back here, with a strange man she would not know; it had crawled inside her, this fear, like bugs, but the bugs went the moment she saw him.

Because she _does_ know him still, his eyes are still the same, and she reassures herself that he looks at her as he always did, eyes wide and hopeful and sad, looking to her for guidance and when, in her frozen uncertainty she does not provide it he comes to her, almost in a run and throws his arms around her waist in a crushing hug. It is not hard from there to hug him back, to clutch him close and keep herself from crying. For a moment it almost seems that he is shorter than her again, and the boy she had never stopped picturing him as is burying his face in her chest. But it is not like that. She looks over his shoulder warily at the faces of the watchers and is relieved to see them smile and nod, _this is right, this is good, this is rather sweet_ their smiles seem to say and she is more than happy to let them think it, if only they would go away. It is painful to keep herself from clutching him as close as she would like, if anything could ever be close enough. She hears them talking quietly, so quietly – but she has become used to people talking about her as though she is not there, assessing her and she is good to at listening without anyone knowing that she is. She is surprised to feel a slight stiffening in Thomas and realises that he has become used to it as well, however different his circumstances have been. She feels closer to him for sharing this.

“They’ll be alright,” they hear and “It’s really not up to us anymore,” and “She seems much better,” and then they are all nodding like they’ve convinced themselves smugly of something. They are happy in their stupid judgement and she laughs inside at how stupid they are. In her mind she slams her cleaver through them all and in truth she stands still, forcing herself to release Thomas from her arms so she can smile at them and shake their hands and say those blessed goodbyes. She feels like she is quite good at it, this pretending, but she can see that Thomas is better and cannot work out how to feel about that.

She watches them warily the whole way out the door and the carriage as it heads on out the gates, until she cannot see it anymore and when she comes back Thomas is looking at her. It is different from how he looked at her before and a lot of broken things inside her shift around beneath that gaze into what she thinks might be a better shape.

Once she is certain that they are gone she turns back around to see that he has been watching her the whole time she has been watching them. She smiles awkwardly, wanting to believe what she thinks she can see – that he cannot stop looking at her, not for a moment. It feels as though her heart has started to beat again after a long time dead – well, she had thought it was dead. She knows now that it has just been waiting, just like the house has been waiting. All of a sudden she feels very close to the house. She wishes Thomas would speak – she finds herself with no idea of what she should say.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, as though he can hear her wish – she remembers with a pleasant jolt that he had always had that ability, and she smiles. It feels strange to smile and to mean it, bewildering to feel the little rush of happiness. She wonders if her mouth is doing the right thing, if her eyes show the light she can feel in there. She feels so suddenly alive, so _here._ She had become used to being always absent from herself, or at least half absent, going away in her head has become such a habit it has become hard to pull herself back. But not now. She shakes her head, looking down –

“No I –” she stops, re-starts, looks up again excruciatingly shy –“So are you”. So strange to be shy around him, and not quite right, but he smiles at her in delighted reply and it reminds her quite terrifyingly of everything she has ever done for him and everything she would still do. There is so little she would not do. He touches her arm gently and this time when he hugs her she melts into his arms and it is somehow subtly different from before, less innocent, though she kisses him on the cheek like the child she has never really been and rests her head on his shoulder as though she could fall asleep there.

“I missed you,” he says. Her heart thrills to hear it.

“I did –” she begins and her voice chokes – “I missed you too – I missed you –” _so much_ she nearly says but the force of it makes her need to hold back tears. He rubs her back as though he could understand. She is sure that he cannot but it feels good all the same.

“I missed you every day,” he says – “Wherever were you? I asked and asked – every day – and nobody would tell me. They told me to stop asking but I didn’t – I couldn’t – I –” She wipes her face surreptitiously on his shoulder to hear the way his voice chokes up, just the same as hers does, it could almost be her own voice if she was a man.

“Where were you?” he asks again and she hates the question, cannot look at him, cannot tell him the truth – not just yet – she cannot possibly make him sad for her when they are so happy right now. And she realises now that he _will_ be sad for her, he really will; there have been so many times when she started to doubt that he would even care, when she had doubted he would remember her or ever think about her.

“I’m sorry –” she swallows hard but she cannot stop herself crying silently as she speaks, clutching him tight, her hands scrunching into the back of his coat – “I’m so sorry – I tried to get away –” that was true at least; more than twenty times she had tried to escape that first year and more than twenty times punished for it almost beyond bearing but she does not tell him that now – “I didn’t know where you were either – nobody would tell me either – I wish –” there was so much that she wished.

“I was at school,” he says – “They sent me to Whitehaven – to family there – they were alright but I missed you so much. I thought about you every day –” something in his voice made her raise her head, surprised to see that he had coloured up a little, something else behind his last words that he would not say and she wondered at it. Mostly she just breathed out in relief that he had been safe. It was perfect, just what she had hoped for the most – that he had not suffered as she had but that he had not been happy without her all the same. He sees her looking and hides his burning face in her neck.

“I suppose –” she says slowly, heart not really in it – “At some point you might have to let me go –” she meant the hug of course, it had gone on so long but yes, she supposed they could not stand in the hallway like this.

“No!” he says and the force of it surprises her, he holds her even closer – “No never, never again”. There is something so fierce, so adult in his voice that she cannot argue it, does not want to, it sends little thrills through her chest and all the way down her body and she could not break the embrace now if she wanted to. They stay like that for a long time, finally sliding down so they are on their knees in the hallway, arms still wrapped tightly around each other. In the end it hurts to let go and they keep a fierce hold of each other’s hand.

“Where do we go now?” she asks, realising she is asking him to make a decision possibly for the first time in their lives.

“I thought we’d take our things up – to the attic,” he says. She frowns;

“Why the attic?” a hint of sharpness creeping into her voice. Then she looks at him and it melts away, she can see it still has not occurred to him that they could be allowed anywhere else – “Thomas –” she whispers as though it is a wonderful secret, cupping his face in her hand – “We can go _anywhere –_ the whole house is _ours –_ they even gave me the keys.”

He looks at them now in her hand, still frowning, struggling to get used to the idea –

“We could –” he says slowly.

“Yes?”

His eyes widen –

“We could _explore.”_

She breaks into a grin and puts her hand over her mouth in surprise to feel it;

“Yes!” the idea thrills  her, both of them, they look sideways at each other, grinning mischievously as though it were an operation of terrible daring, and it is, there is so much of the house they have never seen.

And all that day they explore, walking the corridors hand in hand feeling tiny, two children lost in this enormous place that should have had all the familiarity of home but which is a labyrinth of rooms and corridors they have never seen. They go from room to room, opening doors and leaving them unlocked, then they go over it all again just so Lucille can keep a count, numbering each room as she goes. She finds herself needing to touch everything, to stake a claim on it, whilst Thomas just watches her always, wondering at her daring.

In the end they still take their things up to the attic.

__x__

**This was gonna be one chapter in which they get reunited leading to first time sex but it’s already got so long I’m splitting it up – maybe into three chapters. I’m wondering if I should actually post these in a separate story instead as it’ll be a few coherent chapters of the same thing – maybe as well as posting them here? What do people think?**

**By the way, since I’ve not mentioned it recently, anyone wanting to come find me on tumblr, I’m _shadow-in-the-shade._ :-)**


	8. Chapter 8

After being sure she would not, she makes her old bedroom her new one. There are too many good memories of this place not to, most of them late night memories from when their parents were gone away. In theory Thomas had his room just down the corridor but it occurs to them both now that he need no longer even pretend to use it. He leaves his bags on the floor of her room when she does; sat on the edge of her bed looking around she glances to them and asks awkwardly if that means he wants to stay.

“Yes” he says first and then, less certainly – “I mean yes – but – if I – if that’s – can I –” She laughs a little, surprising herself. She stands up and he crosses the room to be beside her, she places her hands gently, warmly on his chest, feeling strangely innocent, like a bride on her wedding night, she thinks – _maybe this is as close to that as I will ever come, after all._

“Of _course,”_ she whispers. His arm goes around her waist, his face turning towards her, pressing his nose into her hair;

“Thank God. A night’s too long to spend so far away.”

“Your room’s just down the hall,” she murmurs. Something has whispered its way between them now, something that was always there after all but had not dared to voice itself sooner. They both realise at the same time that he is holding her like a lover and that her hand has crept around his neck – and neither of them break away.

“I missed you,” he says for the thousandth time that day, but it is different this time; she knows, it means more than it meant before. She trembles, his breath is so warm, so dangerously electric against her neck; she had been so afraid he would have changed, stopped thinking about her like this, found someone else in the years away. She is still afraid, aware of the gap in their experience, aware that he has learned about sex as something exciting to be eagerly if nervously sought after whilst she has learned only that it is to be feared and hated and avoided. She supposes that to some degree this is true for all men and for all women, at least to begin with. At the same time she is half surprised to find herself wanting it, wanting him just as she had ever done and more and it clashes confused and shaking in her mind alongside the fear and hate she thought she had come to know.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t want me any more –” she tries to articulate every feeling at once and this is the poor best she can manage – “Not like you did.”

He shifts against her a little and she can feel how hard he is, her eyes widening in a tempest of arousal and terror that fight inside her so hard it threatens to overwhelm her. He shakes his head at her, minutely but enough –

“Always” he says – “Every day.” He pulls back just enough to look her in the eye, blinking as though unable to believe in her – “You’re more beautiful than ever, how could I –” he cannot finish the sentence and her eyes fall closed when he kisses her, so slowly at first, so gently as though he somehow knows she is afraid of more than she admitted. But she is the one who grows impatient first and when she deepens the kiss, pushing back fiercely he follows her as though waiting for this had been hard. She remembers this, though at the same time it feels like the first time she has ever been kissed, but she still remembers; it was always like this, frantic and feverish, leaving her gasping for breath and still wanting more. In that first gasping pause he exhales her name and she almost comes apart; nobody has said it like that before, not ever; she had never once imagined anybody would. This time he kisses her face, her forehead, trailing hot hungry kisses all the way down her throat and she shivers, shaken by everything she wants and everything she is afraid of. When his hand reaches to gently cup her breast she stiffens and grows still. He feels it and stops at once, breaking away –

“What is it? You’re shaking.”

She has spent so many nights like this over the past few years, long hours spent either frozen in her horror and disgust at the day that came before it or shaking and hurt, afraid of the morning. She does not want that again. She sighs, takes his hands in hers, sits back on the edge of the bed. He sits with her.

“I have to tell you some things -” she takes a deep breath – “About where I was. What happened – I – and you’re not going to like it – I’m sorry –” she looks at him, apology and sorrow brimming in her eyes, feeling a terrible weight of guilt, of blame, that she has to hurt him with this. She wishes she could be less selfish, that she not let any of it happen that she has to hurt him with it now – “I’m so sorry –” she shakes her head. He frowns, strokes away the tears she had not known she was crying. He sits back against the headboard, opening up his arms to pull her in, let her curl up against him;

“It’s alright,” he says – “Tell me. Let me help.” Each one of these shakes her so she cannot stand it, so she bursts into tears and cries against him before the story can even be told. When she can tell it, after the crying, it comes out in a long monotone she does not feel, as though it had all happened to somebody else.

She does not tell it all. There is too much, she tells him so, and he tells her whenever she wants to she can. It is more a need than a want to tell this tale, a sickness that needs to be thrown out of her system in words. So she does not tell him all the details but even hearing it vaguely she is appalled at what her own ears are hearing as though her voice has become detached from the rest of her.

“The last years were better,” she finishes, not wanting him to stay sad; he has both wept and raged for her throughout the telling of it – “They knew they were going to have to let me go – even if I did not – so they had to make it look like – like I was _cured.”_ She almost spat the word – “The only cure for a place like that is to survive it and then leave it; and I _did._ ” Her eyes glittered in a triumph it had only just now occurred to her she could have, just for a moment before they darted away, darkening with shame –

“I’m so sorry,” she says again – “I never wanted to betray you – I know I promised no-one would touch me except you, I’m so sorry –” She almost says _I’ll never do it again_ like a child, but remembers the amount of times she has said this in the past, how useless it has always been, how pathetic and weak she had been and ca not do it now.

He kisses her head, hushes her, unable to bear her apologies, or withstand her suggestions that it was in any way her fault. She can feel his tears run into her hair as he holds her so close and still so gentle, as though afraid that he might still hurt her. She looks up at him for the first time;

“I’m so sorry I made you sad.” Her forehead furrows. The look in her eyes is grinding down his heart, she looks at him at once like a child and like an old, old lady, her eyes so childish and so full of horrors – “I wanted us to be happy, not cry all over each other.”

“I –” he frowns – “I’ve never been happier than I am today,” he says, and it is true, in spite of this and she understands because it is the same for her and her heart fills back up with happiness to know she would never have to explain herself to him or fail to understand what he was feeling when they felt it with the same heart, the same blood.

“Truly?” she looks at him intently, eyes big and trusting. She was so scared, so afraid of this feeling of trust; she thought she had killed it, almost wishes she had killed it, but hope flutters in her chest like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis she had thought dead and she was terrified for it.

“Truly.” He smiles, kisses her nose, makes her smile. That was all there was, really, all there needed to be – “I was useless without you. I love you, Lucille.”

Her ears ring with the wild thrill of hearing it, it all sounded like it came out of a book, from the stories she loved but which had always felt like fantasy compared to real life. She had known only that such words existed but never that anyone would say them to her. Even if it wasn’t true she thought she might just enjoy it for now.

“Yes” she replies, forgetting what she should say, and only after a long pause kissing him lightly on the lips –

“I love you too.”

He is so determined to be careful, not to cause her any more pain, that they do not even try to negotiate getting undressed that night; they sleep curled up together, still in the clothes they were wearing, pulling the bedsheets over their heads to make a cave, kissing in the dark like children for the first time. _This is good,_ she thinks, and is surprised, so very surprised that such sensations could exist for her, that they might continue to exist, to deepen. She thrills with hope from her heart to her toes and can almost feel him vibrate with the same happiness. It seems unbelievable but it seems to them then and for a long time to come that the rest of their lives could be good.

__x__

**Ohh, my gently hopeful Lucille breaks my heart a little; like when a tiny animal falls asleep on you and you’re like _ooooh_ and so quiet and careful not wanting to hurt it! **

**Side note; I was desperate to have Thomas say “let me help” at some point on account of a bit in Star Trek TOS where Kirk tells someone that a writer of the future once said those were three words to be prized beyond “I love you” (obviously, later in the series Spock says “Let me help” to Kirk, but I digress!!!) So I did that.**

**And next chapter I promise the sex! :-)**


	9. Chapter 9

**In which these two idiots continue quite stubbornly to _not_ fuck, goddamnit. Or not quite anyway. :-) Trigger references for references to extremely underage activities, I’m talking pre – teen, just so you’re warned.**

The days that follow are perhaps the best they have ever known, or ever will again. She wakes first that morning and for the first time in four years wakes knowing where she is, though it is not so much the place that reassures her than the fact that he is the first thing she sees.

Her limbs ache from being locked in the one position all night but she does not care, it is worth it to wake up with her forehead pressed to his, nose to nose, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms like she remembers from what seems like a world ago. She does not let go, but she pulls back enough to watch him sleep; his face unguarded fascinates her and she traces its new shape with reverential fingers. There is so much that is still the same; she watches his eyelashes flutter against his cheek and remembers and remembers and almost drowns beneath it, afraid of her own heartbeat, of all that she would do for him. He is so perfect still but there is so much that is different; he has grown more than she could have thought possible and she half wants to weep for the wasted years but is too happy now for weeping. She traces every line of his face, eyebrows, cheekbones, the corners of his lips; tries to push the hair back that has fallen over his forehead but it falls straight back and she remembers that too. So perfect, so precious, her heart aches but it is such a good ache. This is the one good thing she has ever had and just this morning she could imagine to herself that she might not destroy it like everything else.

His eyelids flutter like little moths and he opens his eyes sleepily, smiling at her and pulling her closer as though the fraction she moved back put her too far away. He holds her so tight she feels quite crushed but she would never seek to extricate herself from the embrace, whether she could breathe or not.

“Good morning,” she whispers, and her lips are so close to his, he closes the gap and their lips shiver at the contact.

“Good morning,” he echoes, after that first kiss and they smile together and squeeze hard. The way he looks at her, she could half believe it is the same as the way she looks at him – as though towards something beautiful and precious though she knows she’s not, not really.

When she starts to sit up she finds that everything aches more than she ever though it could from sleeping in a corset and, with sleepiness as a buffer to shyness she asks him to unlace her. He kisses her shoulder, sitting up behind her, and she can feel his hands shake at her back. It is a relief to breathe again but she feels him staring, his hands faltering on her skin and stiffens, breathless all over again. She remembers she has scars now he does not know about, has never kissed better; and she realises she has no idea just how or why he is staring. She turns away sharply, suddenly shaking with the need to cover herself, pulling the bedsheet up to her neck and unable to meet him in the eye.

“I’m disgusting – I know,” she is almost angry at him but could not begin to say why, her fingers twist together with the sheet in between.

“What –” he puts a hand on her shoulder, she turns her head enough to see his forehead knit into a frown – “No – never – please Lucille –” he cannot stand the way she looks down, away from him, gently touches her cheek to turn her face to his and she finally turns back around. Tears spring into his eyes when he sees the fear in hers and he is not sure if it is fear that he will hurt her or that he hates her, maybe both – he does not know what to say to cover both possibilities, instead he just whispers –

“You’re beautiful”, one finger tracing a long new scar that curls around her shoulder almost running all the way down the left breast. Slowly she drops her hands to let him follow it and this is so familiar it is strangely comforting. All those nights he spent kissing away her bruises, soothing every new cut, making everything feel better with ointment and kisses and love, and then as they grew older finding new ways of offering up pleasant sensations in the place of the painful ones. He bends his head to her collarbone to kiss the scar and she finally drops her hands.

“I wish –” he says sadly – “I had been there – to make it better at the time –” she knows he wants to say more but her eyes flash fire and he is startled by the panic that darts across her face –

“No!” she breathes – “Don’t say that, don’t ever say that. If you had had to – no Thomas please I couldn’t stand it – please –”

He holds her close again, impulsively, hushing her, rocking her gently. He half wants to sing to her to comfort her, like she has always done but does not want to take her role away.

“Lie down,” he says gently, guiding her with his hands until she is lying back on the bed, wriggling out of her skirt, pressing her face into the pillows which is a relief because she is still so ashamed of what she must look like to him. He has had nice things whilst she had been gone and it hurts her to only be able to give him something so broken. But he leans over her gently, kissing and stroking each new scar, getting used to them like he is used to every other part of her body. Only when he is nearly finished does she feel the press of his erection against her and realises he has been taking every effort to angle it away from her. She cannot help but be touched that he has tried so hard to ignore this need for her in favour of trying to help her and she rolls onto her side to face him, laughing a little and reaching to touch him through his trousers. He gasps and goes so tense it feels as though he might come just at her touch, his eyes roll a  little with the effort and he forces himself to say –

“You don’t have to –”

“I know,” she replies, deft fingers working through the fabric, reaching for his cock and her eyes widen to feel how much larger he is now than when she did this before – “I wouldn’t do it if I did not,” she adds, taking it in her hand and stroking maddeningly gently – “I’m not afraid of my brother’s cock,” she smiles and then he is coming into her hand, as soon as she reaches the word _cock_ , groaning her name and shaking with the force of it. She watches him, feeling wonderful, smiling –

“I remember,” she says and he smiles weakly, reaching for her, wanting quite urgently to give her the same pleasure. She always wondered when they were little how he could look so innocent but do this so well. She relaxes slowly in his arms as he touches her, she had been so sure she would be afraid, but his fingers are no sooner on her than she starts to shiver and squirm wildly in delight. She takes longer than he does but not nearly as long as she had thought she would and she soon comes, screaming and surprised at herself, such a huge part of her tension dissipating into the air as her body relaxes, trembling. They lie together in sweet silence for a long time, skin humming on skin.

After a while she asks the question that has plagued her the most –

“Was there ever anyone else?” she asks it with her face in his shoulder, bracing herself for an answer she will not like – “when I was gone, I mean.”

“Anyone else?” he frowns – “Whatever do you mean?” She sighs, he is so dense sometimes;

“Was there any other girl – that you liked – or –” she cannot bring herself to say the rest of it, shrivelling up inside to even imagine him touching anyone else. Luckily he gets there this time.

“Never!” he says it firmly, almost shocked, as though the idea appals him – “There was never anyone else but you, I always knew I’d see you again.”

“Did you?” she murmurs and very quietly – “I didn’t. I thought you – might forget me.” It only occurs to her when the words are mostly out how unjust this could sound. But it was true, she had doubted everything in that place and because he had been the thing she wanted most of all he had been the thing she had doubted most of all. If the question hurts him however she is grateful that he does not show it.

“How could I?” he holds her tighter - “There was no-one else – no-one else who ever came close. When I first heard – from the boys at school – about – about –” she smiles to see him blush, wonders at the circumstances under which she could ever have reacted that way and does not help him out – “When I heard all that two people could do – my first thought – my _only_ thought – was of you. When the boys spoke of girls and kisses and all of that I felt so much cleverer than them because I could think of you and everything we did. I was so proud of you, to have you, even if you weren’t there just then – and I missed you so much. When I heard about – about –”

She had to put him out of his misery, she supposed –

“Fucking?” she supplied. If it could have been possible he blushed harder –

“Yes that. I – I wanted you so much. I touched myself that night thinking of you, your body – like that. I even looked in the mirror some nights when I did it – I thought I could see you in my eyes – I only every thought of you, I swear.”

Her cunt clenches uncontrollably at his words and she cannot stop a little _ugh_ of arousal that escapes her.

“You can, you know,” she says.

“Really?”

“Soon,” she nods – “I thought about you too.” It was true. She does not tell him the trouble she got into on the occasions she was caught. It hardly seems to matter anymore.

“I love you,” he says – “I don’t want to hurt you”.

“Brother –” she whispers, shaking her head – “I want you to do _everything_ to me; I’m yours – and you’re mine.”

He smiles at that and falls to touching her again, this time she touches back at the same time. It is a long time before they get out of bed that day.

__x__

 

**Okay okay I know I promised. But eh, they didn’t, what can I do? Tbh there’s not enough straight porn out there that just centres around fingering but I promise in the next chapter (let’s say or two just to be on the safe side) actual sex will truly happen! Stay with me!**

**Ugh, I’ve just been informed by my beta that I need to give them credit for the idea of Thomas whacking off whilst looking in the mirror because his reflection reminded him of Lucille. But I will add that they came up with this concept in the middle of some very exciting role play shenanigans. :-P**

**There’s a cookie for anyone who gets the relevance of “I am yours and you are mine” by the way. :-)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Uh – still no sex. Warnings for mental imbalance and a kind of ptsd, I guess, I’m bad at diagnoses.**

They come to life in the days that follow, as if from a deep sleep or a temporary death. It is a shy, tingling, intrepid sort of life but it is closer to life than either of them have known in years. For the first time for Lucille at least, since almost before she can remember it seems that the steady death that began in her so young has been halted, that it could even be reversing, that life could really be for the living and she a part of that incredible world.

She always was afraid to look at too much life too hugely; and so she had studied it small and up close, learned the microcosms and tiny universes that could be found all over nature. She had stirred up anthills and charted the lives of the moths in the attic walls. She had found such beauty in the tiny and the short – lived, because to look any further afield was too frightening, too implausible. But just for now, it seemed like it could be really different; she could almost have felt like she belonged in the world – if she had ever thought to leave the house.

She was _not_ going to leave the house, at first even to go outside. She was finding such unexpected happiness it seemed too daring to risk asking for more. The outside world could stay away; she contrasted her new life within these walls with everything she had encountered outside of Allerdale and found everything else to be painfully wanting. She knew she should probably check this before it turned into a damaging phobia of – everything, she supposed- of the world beyond Crimson Peak and all the people in it. But it was logical to be afraid and so she supposed it would not matter – it was not damaging, she told herself; it was survival.

For the first time, she wondered if she was not doing more with her life than just surviving it. It felt like a fairy tale and that she really had been woken with a kiss. She had always known, even in the years of absence, that there was no other prince for her than this; she had just doubted he would ever find her again. She found herself smiling more than she ever thought possible, even laughing when they talked and played, now and then going even so far as to annoy each other and squabble like children now that they had the room and peace to make noise throughout the house.

Not that they used a great deal of it. He told her he did not want endless rooms available to them when after all neither wanted to be in a different one from the other at any time. She found herself missing him when he left for mere minutes and he in turn would return from the kitchen or bathroom and throw himself into her arms as though the separation had been unbearable. It almost had.

One afternoon she had been playing a piece in the front room and looked up from the last note to find him gone. She could not help it; she flew straight into a panic –

“Thomas?” she looked around the room wildly, wondering if this was how it began – if this was where her madness started to show and the dream faded, if she would find herself back in the asylum simply imagining all of this. It was too believable. The second time she called his name it came out in a shriek. What if she was just imagining all this? What if she had taken one blow too many and her brain had thrown her back here, to Allerdale Hall and home in this unlikely scenario – for god’s sake – she chided herself for being so stupid – with Thomas back with her, with him loving her? With the freedom of this house and all the time in the world for just them? With the nightmare gone and someone to talk to? With him loving her? She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob of laughter. It was ridiculous! How had she ever thought that this could be? She had imagined these fancies so hard in the past that she had been close to back here in her mind so many times before she snapped out of it and she was alone in a bright white room with silence screaming in her ears, or back on a ward with a louder shrieking all around her reminding her like blows to the head where she was, where she would always be, where she belonged.

She whimpered into her scrunched up fist, biting at the knuckle, wanting to call out again but her voice would no longer come. It was _impossible_ ; if he was not here then she could not be either. Everything was blurry and she wished she had not stood up only to have to lean and bend like this in a storm of her own making, holding on to the back of a chair to stay standing. This was it; this was the moment she would hit the floor and wake up staring at the bright lights and faceless faces.

“Lucille?”

She could only half see him and felt her legs ripple like water; two realities clashing violently. When she opened her eyes again she was knelt on the floor, her knees hurt a little and Thomas was beside her, cradling her head against his chest.

“What happened?” she frowned – “Why am I on the floor?”

“You fainted.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No you did – you swooned – I caught you – just.”

Her knees had taken at least part of it, she could feel it, but she was not as hurt as she perhaps should have been, so supposed that he really had caught her, mostly.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did I do that? I don’t _faint.”_ It was true, she had only ever fainted from pain in her life, never from confusion or dizziness, excess of emotion or corsetry like the kinds of girls she despised.

“You did though. You looked like –” he looked down.

“Like what?”

“Like you were going to cry.”

Her lip curled scornfully, but it was an automatic response she did not really mean. She remembered suddenly that she _had_ been – and then she remembered the rest of it.

“I couldn’t find you –” she felt stupid now but she supposed she had started now and should probably go on – “I stopped playing – and you weren’t there – and I forgot where I was because I couldn’t see you. I thought I was back – back –” her lip quivered and she struggled. He kissed her forehead, stroked her hair, hushed her, all the silly things people do when they love and care and do not know how to help more specifically. Silly things that soothe all the same in spite on their unhelpfulness. She remembered how to breathe and inhaled deeply.

“You love me,” she said as firmly as she could, though it was a question and he heard that.

“Yes.”

“And we’re here – home, safe, alone.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not going anywhere?”

“No.”

“And I’m not going anywhere.”

“Please,” he smiled at her; he was worried, she could see it in his eyes – oh – his eyes drew her in and she found herself reaching gentle fingers to his face, looking into those eyes for all the answers she felt like she was finding again and struggling to keep a grip on. She could see her face reflected there, and _she looks like a madwoman_ she thought that he thought, her eyes were bright and darting and troubled.

“What are you looking at?” he half smiled, she stared at him so intently.

“Myself,” she replied. He nodded.

“I know,” he said and suddenly he did.

“You do?”

“I live in your eyes too,” he said, and now he was the one asking a question that sounded like a statement.

She smiled then and her eyes were wide with relief, it was so good to be understood, to really _be_ where she really was and to know where that was. It was such a relief to remember – to know that she was here and that it was the asylum that was not real now – so different from how the last few years had gone. She supposed she would keep having moments like this until she did not have them anymore.

She put her hands in his then and let him help her to her feet, just to walk the short distance round to the couch by the fire. She felt ashamed now of her foolishness and embarrassed and expressed it this as briefly as she could, shaking off weakness like drops of water.

“I think –” he said slowly – “I think it’s fair. It’s understandable.”

“Is it?”

“I can’t –” he fumbled for the words, wanting to say he did not want to claim an understanding of what had happened to her when he knew he could not possibly understand, not really, but wanting to reach her as far as he could – “I find it hard to believe I’m here myself. I thought of home so often and I missed you so much – and now I don’t have to but the hole doesn’t close up straight away – is it something like that?”

She smiled; it was. It sounded strange when put so sanely.

“Something like that,” she nodded – “Where were you?”

“I went to the kitchen –” he looked apologetic – “To make some tea. You were in the middle of your piece, I didn’t think you’d be finished before I got back. I am sorry – I miss you when you’re in another room too.”

She smiled so widely that a little laugh came out, nervous – but real.

“How silly we are –” she shook off the last little drops – “Tea did you say? Is it still hot?”

He smiled and poured tea.

__x__

**It’s GOOD tea okay, not scary tea. There is no trauma on this planet that tea cannot help remove! This happened; uh – it’s still not sex. Shoot me. :-)**

**There was a moment there where it went a little bit “Real or not real” like in _Hunger Games_ but I managed not to (that makes me cry mostly because I have to play it quite a bit) – just about. I dunno if this is how many people would behave in a panic attack I can only base it off what I can get like so I hope it doesn’t seem too wrong to anyone. Also I’m worried I’m making Lucille _too_ fragile in my efforts to explore her crappier years? **


	11. Chapter 11

**Trigger warnings for graphic flashbacks of child abuse in the first half. Not giving any spoilers for the second half though, enjoy. :-)**

 

They spent the whole rest of that day curled up together on the sofa, moving only occasionally to put more wood on the fire. She decided this was her favourite place to be, her head on his chest, his breath gently stirring her hair, when his face moved closer to hers his eyelashes tickled her skin and made her laugh.

They spoke of so many things, but afterwards she was not sure she could have remembered what any of them were, stroking all the while and kissing in between. After a particularly fierce bout of kissing Thomas looked up to find their mother glaring down at them from the wall. He shuddered;

“We really should take that down.”

She twisted herself around in his arms to look where he was looking, pushing herself back against him so that her back was against his chest, her head beneath his chin, his arms still around her. She looked up at the wall, noticing the portrait properly for the first time.

“Mother,” she sneered, smiling widely – “Does she make you uneasy? She _is_ horrible.”

“Uneasy – yes, a bit,” he admitted – “Like she’s still judging us.”

Something about it tickled Lucille. She knew that he was right, and that she should probably feel the same, remembered the look on her hideous face when she had found them together and the way her heart had felt in her mouth, choking her with terrified beating. But then –

“She’s dead,” she said, happy and spiteful all at once but most of all savagely victorious – “I killed her.”

She felt Thomas move a little uncomfortably behind her, felt him look away, pressing his face into her hair.

“Well I did.” She would not let him look away, would not lie to him, did not want him loving her only in spite of what she had done, she turned her head, scowling to catch his expression –

“Open your eyes”. It sounded strange to him, to hear that and for a moment it threw him back –

_“Close your eyes,” she had pleaded – “Thomas please close your eyes. Don’t watch. Don’t open them again until I say.”_

_He forgot what they had done, he always forgot. He supposed it had probably been his fault, it must have been, he remembered the guilt, fierce and burning black inside. She was crying, almost managing to keep it silent but he could hear it in her voice. He did not want to close his eyes, he knew he deserved to see this when it was his fault and she was saving him for the thousandth time. But he had not been there to see it before, this was the first time. Mother did not hear her, she was still screaming at Lucille, but it was easy to listen to his sister above the shrieking, her voice would have been in his head if she had not even spoken out loud._

_“Please!” she screamed it at him quietly – “Thomas please don’t watch this.”_

_It was the least he could do, he supposed, but he would never forget the terrible sounds as her dress ripped and the cane cracked down across her back again and again. He could feel it as though he was the one taking it. He wished, with all the strength in his tiny heart that by feeling her pain he could take it from her. But it did not work. He could hear the painful sounds of his sister not screaming and knew it was only for him that she forced herself to keep quiet. He had heard her before, when she had been taken to a different room; he knew that screaming made it more bearable. It felt like forever before their mother gave a grunt of disgust and he heard a thump, several vicious curses hurled at them both and her footsteps receding across the floorboards. He still did not open his eyes; he could hear Lucille breathing fast, moving slowly, a soft growl escaping her as she tried to breathe normally. When her voice finally came it sounded distant –_

_“You can open your eyes now. She’s gone.”_

_She was sat on the floor, in just her underskirt, blood seeping into the soft white layers. She had her face in her hands and as he crawled over to her she pushed her hands through her hair, rubbing her head as she did so, looking up and smiling so weakly it broke his heart a little._

_“I’m alright,” she lied  reaching out a hand to him. He held it in his, fingers twisting together until he did not know whose were whose – “I will be,” she amended. She reached out her arms to him and he crawled onto her lap, holding her as gently as he could. She rocked him gently, comforting herself as much as him –_

_“Always look away,” she whispered – “Always close your eyes. If you see anything you don’t like don’t look at it, nobody can make you. They can do what they want but they can’t make you look at it – they can’t.”_

_“Yes,” he nodded hard, head pressed under her chin – “Yes Lucille.”_

_He wanted to say that she always looked everything straight in the eye. She could have watched a fist coming at her face and hardly flinched. When he said this later she laughed, a little sadly –_

_“I don’t have to close my eyes not to see,” she said – “Just looking’s not the same.”_

_He supposed it made her better than him, stronger, just like everything else, but he closed his eyes from then on all the same._

He opened his eyes now, because she had told him to, and looked up at the picture again unwillingly.

“I killed her,” Lucille said again – “And if I had to go back and do it again I would do – just the same – only this time I wouldn’t get caught. There’s nothing she can do to us now Thomas. Let her judge. Let her _try. Give her_ something to judge, brother.”

This time he looked away from the portrait to watch. His sister’s fingers were working her dress open from the front, him watching her every move as she pushed her breasts into his hands, moving his hands to where she wanted them. But she did not have to keep encouraging for him to tease her nipples between his fingers, palms tingling over the softness of those breasts.

“There is _nothing_ she can stop us doing –” she hissed, wriggling back against his cock, feeling it harden for her fast – “We can do everything she ever feared and more and I’ll be the slut she always said I was, the whore – but I’ll be your slut, brother, only yours – your whore. I want her to see you fuck me –” she could feel his body jerk against her at her words but at the same time his hand went still at her breast and it was with great effort that she heard him say –

“Wait – no –”

She did not let him get further, hurt and anger latching to her before he could even finish. She pulled away sharply, kneeling back to glare at him, the injury flashing in her eyes –

“No?” she shrieked – “ _No?_ You don’t want me, I knew you didn’t want me, not –” She was so quick to anger she forgot for a moment how like her he could be and it shocked her somewhat delightfully when he sat forward just as fiercely, grabbing her by the arms, utterly unwilling to let her misinterpret him this time –

“ _I want you,”_ he hissed, shaking her a little in the intensity of feeling– “I want you too much to let _her_ have anything to do with it.” It was what he had wanted to say to begin with; he had not meant to have to be angry and was ashamed to feel it fuelling his lust, but his voice softened even if his cock did not  and he reached a hand to her face;

“My sister –” he sighed – “My love – I thought about this so often, I’ve wanted you so much and so long – just you Lucille, and just me – I don’t want _her_ to have anything to do with it. Don’t let her ruin this like she’s ruined everything else. Just you –”

“Just you –” she echoed – “And just me.”

“Everything else is just background noise,” he said. He had said it once before when they were little and it was true now and reassuring. He stood up, held out his hand to her. She felt like a princess when she took the hand he offered but she still threw one last vindictive smile over her shoulder at their mother’s portrait as they went out the room.

They went to her room; it was not discussed but both would have been surprised to find the other heading anywhere else. Indeed, after all they had talked that afternoon, now there was nothing to be said and any fear or awkwardness had melted into a puddle of raw need and a pleasant willingness to give themselves up to this moment – this point it was clear they had been headed towards all their lives. He was on the point of doing something – he soon lost any idea as to what – when she unpinned her hair. Somehow, in spite of the state of dishevelment she was already in, this was more graphic, more erotic than anything she had done before. He watched her hair fall in waves down her back, realising he had not known until this point, even how long it was. He knew that whatever else happened he would see her hair fall like that every time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life. She had let him see her breasts but she had not let him see her with her hair loose. However much they had spent of these last few days with their hands in one another’s clothing they had still been careful not to watch each other undress. Over careful. His face felt numb and his hands shaky. He both could not believe he might be allowed to touch something so beautiful and feared he might die if he did not. Her hair was almost black in this light against the snow of her skin and the dress as it fell around her feet was a crumpled pool of red; she was a living fairy tale and he felt himself in a dream. He knew right then that he could never truly love anyone else. When she reached out a hand to him he felt as though his heart might stop and if it did, if this moment was the end of his life, it would be a good one.

But it was not the end; she put her hand into his, stepping into him, giving with every move she made. He could not have said if it was infinitely fragile that she seemed to him then or infinitely strong. She was everything.

“Yours,” she said and he knew that if he denied it, even only out of his own sense of unworthiness, it would break her.

“Mine,” he breathed; his chest felt tight, like he could die from this love. He felt frozen beneath her fingers as they worked his shirt and then his trousers. Their clothes puddled together, red white and black at the foot of the bed and they – they were cut out the same cloth, his skin against hers the same shade of pale, hair and eyes and lips all made of the same inky substance, as though they were one person that had been cut in half, now urgently trying to put itself back together.

He kissed her so gently at first, touching her almost reverentially but they both remembered the savagery of childhood, the unchecked desperation they had not quite understood. He understood it now, he thought – pressing into her skin, seeing the marks he could make there, understanding how their bodies could flow together, impact upon one another. When he scratched she scratched back until their skin was streaked with a red that was nearly blood, feral yes, he remembered that too, dizzily heady with it.

She lay herself down on the bed, drawing him with her, desperate to not break contact. For a moment he could imagine himself as he looked in her eyes; perfect and beautiful and he wondered if she felt it too; how incredible she looked to him.

She did. She could have cried for it; to feel beautiful – she had never even imagined what that could be like. But she had to be now, now that she was half of something, part of which was also him, her one perfect thing. And he wanted her and they were _nearly_ close enough, she could feel his cock against her leg, feel it straining for her and wanted it with a dizzying and confusing kind of innocence. This was so different, so many worlds away from anything she had known that she more than half felt as though this was her first time too, that while her body knew what to do her mind was wide eyed and clueless.  

She arched against him when his hand went between her legs and they parted for him as though she was boneless, she could have laughed at how easy it was, she had thought it would be so complicated. It was not. He slipped a finger inside her and she jerked up into his hand –

“Yes –” she groaned – “Yes, please –” she reached a hand between them, taking his cock and guiding it; her arms fell back, her hands fisting the sheets to stop her body going out of control as he slid into her, his fingers moving up to just where she wanted them most. He had wrapped his other arm around her shoulders, holding her so close against him and he was inside her, where he was always meant to be, she could feel the same effort not to just lose control and come in that instant running through him as it went through her, she could feel it in every muscle of his body just as in hers. He started to move inside her and every ounce of tension and trying flew apart and to her added relief he was with her, barely inside her for a minute before they were both clutching and screaming and flying and falling together, coming so hard they were laughing and crying all at once, hysterical and flooded with relief. It was a long time before they could both breathe again without gasping.

It seemed imperative to use that breath to kiss rather than to talk; there was no hurry, no rush, no need to do anything ever again but lie like this face to face locked together in slow kisses, basking in them. It might have been a longer age of kissing if the sweetness did not so quickly turn too sweet and they were pressing against each other, moving with an animal instinct, a need that was obvious more than just in the press of his cock against her.

“Again?” she whispered. He nodded between her breasts –

“Again”. She twisted upwards, leaning on one elbow, angling her legs around him and drawing him inside. At first she was not sure she could stay like this but it became comfortable sooner than it should and she was swimming in the delight of having him inside her again, for longer this time. She growled softly and he all but whimpered, thrusting into her with slow and urgent ferocity for what felt like a lovely forever, turning her onto her back towards the end as their need grew more savage, slamming her into her second orgasm and growling alongside her as he came deep inside.

After that it was her turn to pin his wrists into the pillow, riding him into his third time while he looked at her as though she came from another world. It would be worth doing this every day forever, she thought, just to be looked at like that.

And then they curled up tight together and stayed there, barely moving, breathing together, crushed together almost painfully but comfortable in the discomfort.

“I don’t want to breathe if it means we’re further apart,” he said.

“But I don’t want to kill you.”

He looked her in the eyes –

“I only die without you,” he said and though it sounded melodramatic and cliché it felt like simple truth.

“Nothing is getting between us again,” she said, they clung to each other tight enough to bruise their fingerprints on one another’s skin.

“We stay together,” he said and she finished it, nodding, as though these lines had been written for them long ago –

“Never apart”.

“Never apart,” he echoed. It was more than a promise. It felt like a wedding vow.

__x__

 

**Got there! Next up I’m planning a Crimson Peak Christmas special, to be set not long after these events. Probably gonna post it as a separate fic and them maybe add it to this later, I’m thinking two or three chapters of festive tastiness! Ugh, can’t make promises on when I’ll be able to post just yet as we’re flooded as fuck in this corner of the world right now and internet isn’t great! But yeah, sometime before Christmas. :-)**

**Oh yeah, I totally nicked “Everything else is just background noise” from “Gone girl” which I know was in context of a really awful relationship. I didn’t want to make a comparison, I just really like that line, and it works here I think. :-)**


	12. Chapter 12

**I’m so sorry my first post of the year is such a depressing angsty one – but here, have some depressing angst. Trigger warnings for depression and recent baby death.**

**12.**

He was starting to dislike it when he did not know where she was. He worried about her almost constantly these days. Her silences seemed to be longer and her absences more frightening. She had always had those moments when he could see her staring at nothing, when it felt like she was far away and it made him feel cold and awful to have to call out to her to get her back; to see her shake herself off, forcing herself back into the world. He knew that she wondered as much as he did where she went when she did this and that it frightened her even more than it did him. It was almost too much to bear when he did not know where she was physically either.

“Lucille?” she never appeared when he just called the once. It was always an awful moment when he looked up from his tinkering and she was not there with him, nor could he hear her at the piano downstairs. He wondered how long he had been preoccupied before he had noticed the silence. He felt guilty for having been preoccupied at all; but he tried to keep his mind off of things by keeping busy just as she kept her mind from them by unhinging it altogether, as though her mind was a room she could shut off completely, leaving him always hammering at the door to be let in. He wished with all his heart that there was anything he could do to fetch her out.

He tore the house up looking for her, even bringing himself to go out into the last of the gardens, even though the grave was the last place in the world he wanted to be; she would not have gone outside the house to go anywhere else. He had tried to avoid this place ever since the funeral, such as it was and never looked back at the headstone it had taken him so long to carve, though the inscription was engraved excruciatingly on his heart: _Charlotte Victoria Evangeline Sharpe, 8 th -19th, September 1896. _Lucille had insisted on the longest name imaginable to make up, if it could, for the brevity of life. She was not there now, though she  had left her tributes recently and he went away as soon as he had seen this.

_Funeral_ was barely the word for it, he thought as he headed back inside. He had marked the spot and she had dug the grave and laid the little thing inside. He had filled it in and all in silence, neither of them sure what words there were to say. He would have walked away within minutes except that she would not leave until he made her.

A gust of wind caught him as he rounded the corner to re-enter the house by the kitchen; it sent a fall of dust and stone skittering down from the roof and falling in front of his feet. He looked up, frowning, and knew where Lucille was.

-x-

She had been coming up here since she was ten. She had been so bored that past week and the attic was starting to drive her to distraction. Mother and father had been home for too long this time and it felt like months since they had seen anywhere besides these few rooms. In the end she had worked out how to climb the bookcase, leaning it under the window set just under the eaves, emptying off the books and using it like a ladder. The window was not as small up here as she had thought and after fighting the latch she had squeezed through easily.

There was a whole other world up here amongst the chimney stacks and turrets, and it was a world she could explore without ever having to leave the house. As such it was an exploration she set to willingly. She had helped Thomas up the ladder and he had come with her; he had never stopped talking about going on adventures and it had delighted her to be able to bring him on this one. They had played up here amongst the ledges and the gables, games that were so dangerous they became the most fun they had ever had.

But afterwards when Thomas had grown tired he did not want to stay up here in stillness or silence like she did, watching the sky change shape and the moon paint the world in new colours. She had been frustrated when he wanted to go back down before she did but had helped him back down the bookcase anyway, never willing to let him do anything on his own that might hurt him, even when they risked so much more in their games together. After she had seen him to bed with kisses and more protective tenderness than she supposed he still needed she had come back up to sit with her back against a cluster of chimneys, watching the sky in a curious kind of peace. It was the only place she ever felt comfortable being alone in and she went back often in those days to sit and contemplate without really having to think.

It had become more dangerous now, but that had not stopped her. She had taken out the old bookcase and got Thomas to build a proper ladder and came up here still on those rare occasions that she wanted to be alone, remembering the silence and the peace of this place that was still within the house and yet another thing entirely. It was, she supposed, the one place where nothing bad had ever happened. A kingdom, all of her own, to which only Thomas was ever admitted access.

But like everything else her kingdom had diminished. Where she had once been able to run from one side to the other in almost a straight scrambling line, there was now a large hole to skirt around, its ragged brokenness more viciously evident from up here than from downstairs. And more of the roof was dangerous. There were huge places which, though not yet fallen in, felt like they could go at any moment. She felt it beneath her feet on the rare occasions that she still set out to explore. These days she mostly just sat on the roof looking up at the stars and not quite thinking at all.

-x-

She did not answer when Thomas stood below the window and called her name but somehow he still knew she was there. He kept telling her not to come up here anymore. He was terrified for her, images torturing his brain of her falling and going through the roof, plummeting down into the front hall. She had said once that if she was going to kill herself that was the way that she would do it and though he did not think she would the thought never quite stopped haunting him.

He was afraid to go up to the roof these days, though it would not stop him if it was to bring her down. He ascended, warily.

He saw her straight away and his heart fell; she was sat so close to the hole in the roof he was afraid even to move and startle her. Even in his concern his heart hurt at how beautiful she was. She had her legs curled under her and one hand on the tiles, her hair streamed down her back and puddled on the roof behind her. She was wearing one of his shirts, as she tended to do when they were just slouching around the house; it was large on her, the cuffs falling almost entirely over her fingers and the edge coming down to below her knees. She looked tiny in it; like a child, impossible to think she could ever have had a child herself. He cursed himself silently for having to have thought it; everything hurt these days.

He did not want to startle her so instead called her name softly. Her head turned slowly as if in a dream. It occurred to him that instead of looking up at the stars as she had used to she had been staring blankly down through the roof back into the house. She did not seem startled, too far away for that, but she smiled wanly and did not seem to want him to go away, reaching a hand out behind her slowly as though the smallest movement exhausted her. He went to her gingerly and took her hand, kneeling down behind her and wrapping himself around her like a blanket, almost, one she gathered to her, clasping his arms when he wrapped them around her.

“Are you – alright?” he asked quietly after a long rather comfortable silence. She sighed softly, bent her head to kiss his fingers, shrugged one shoulder;

“Yes.”

She sounded so far away, so apathetic, he was not sure he could believe her or not.

“I’ve felt worse” she amended, and somehow this was more cheering, more realistic and if nothing else, it was evidence that she was at least trying to engage and bring herself back from wherever it was she went. He kissed the top of her head, nuzzled his face into the softness of her hair. It was good to feel her soften in his arms, relax, like she did when she was asleep. He supposed now was not the time to tell her how exquisite she was in the moonlight, how much a part of sky and wind she seemed. It frightened him too, this feeling like she could just disappear into the wind and the darkness and he would look up and see her shining amongst the stars. He wished he could tell her he would have blacked them all out if he could only see her smile again.

“You shouldn’t stay here” he said weakly – “It’s not safe”

She shrugged again.

“I manage.”

“I worry about you”

She smiled at that, but it was another sad smile.

“I’ve worried about you since you were born.”

“It’s not a competition. At least come away from the edge.”

He wondered why his mind was so morbid sometimes; why it showed him again and again the image of her walking calmly through the hole in the roof as though she did not care. He tightened his hold her instinctively.

“Alright” she sighed – “For you”.

She twisted in his arms, clasping her hands around his neck and he knew that it was all right to pick her up and carry her away. She was worryingly light. He wanted to remind her to eat properly, concerned that she was forgetting again, but decided not to push his luck. He put her down on her feet just in front of the window and turned her face gently to his.

“Why _do_ you worry so much?” She frowned, touching his face with fluttering fingers.

“I love you” he said simply – “I couldn’t lose you. I _couldn’t.”_

“You’re here –” she said slowly and something opened that had had been tight in his heart to hear that sense of returning creeping back into her voice – “And I’m here – and we’re not going away ever are we?”

He did not frown, would not do anything just now to express his doubt that they should stay here always. Later, when she was ready. For now he put any such hopes aside and shook his head and kissed her and it was all worth it when she smiled at him in return. It was as weak a smile as morning sunlight on a grey day, but it was something. It was there.

__x__

**Huh, on re-reading I realise I made Lucille sound like a creepy version of Dorothy at the end of Wizard of Oz there….oh well. Sorry this was so miserable, I promise to do something pleasanter next time! I wanted to write _something_ connected to my headcanon that Thomas literally fell for Edith because he could make her smile and he’d worn himself thin failing to make Lucille happy ever since they lost the baby. Also I couldn’t shake the image of Lucille in shirtsleeves sitting on the roof. **

**Also my beta is full of festive cold so this is unbeta’d, I’m sorry – do feel free to tell me bits that need fixed! Happy new year!**

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

 

**Mostly pwp, slight trigger warnings for really brief past non – con flashbacks.**

**13.**

He watches the snow fall all day through the window, wide eyed and childlike, trying to focus on other things and always coming back to the window. From up here it was more like being inside the snowfall than just looking out at it. For one he was quite enjoying the cold draughts coming in, he could imagine he was flying through it, all that clean shining white. Lucille hated it, he knew, the clean pristine whiteness of fresh snowfall, too clinical, she said. She liked it better when the red started to seep through. He liked that too, though he supposed not quite in the same way.

Lucille had got tired of him asking if they could go outside and had gone downstairs. He was like a puppy she said, asking if he could be let out to play in the snow. He could hear her playing now, vibrations ringing up through the floorboards. It made him happy. He had always known when it was her playing, even when mother was alive. Lucille’s music was like a hug, warm kisses in all of her notes. He liked to think they were just for him. He could tell her mood too, from what she played and how she played it. Today she sounded benignly content and it made him content to hear it.

Finally the music stopped and so too did the snow falling, almost as though she had timed it that way. Moments later she came into the work room, pulling her gloves on with a faintly ostentatious air of long suffering and smiling with tolerant fondness as she tossed him his coat.

“Snow’s stopped,” she smirked, but it was warm, pulling at her lips – “Come on, walk time!” She turned around smartly in the knowledge that he would follow. He rolled his eyes and smiled back, not quite sure if he was doing so at her or himself for scampering straight after her like the predictable puppy she so clearly thought he was.

The snow was crisp and soft, lightly crunchy, and the chill clear air clamoured to fill the chest. Lucille sniffed at the outside, wary as a fox while Thomas felt a need to restrain himself from bounding straight out into that sea of white. Lucille took his hand, as much to calm his enthusiasm as for warmth, though it was so cold it felt as though their curling fingers would freeze together. The snow had not really quite stopped but came now in a gentle slow motion, tiny flecks as though of fluff drifting idly down. They walked out in unspoken unison, she as graceful as a swan sliding out into a shimmering lake and he, feeling like an over enthusiastic tumbling cygnet in her wake.

It was not long before he realised that, having spent almost the whole day looking out at this strange gathering white world now that he was in it and a part of it, as he had wanted to be all this time – all he could look at was her. She stopped the cold from being painful, the sun from glaring too bright. She was his starlight and in the midst of so much wide open brightness he felt more than ever how much he needed her; his sweet subtle light.

To look at her, to think about her was to want her. He could feel all of the excitement for the bright day pooling within him and changing into something darker, something that always lay at the end of the excitement the snow could bring. Something red. _She_ was the embodiment of red, their footprints in the snow leading to where she had stopped, looking out across the trees, the edge of her cloak dragging in the red slush behind them. He heard himself breathe out her name, saw it hang on the air in his breathe as an offering and she turned, red hood falling, flecks of snow in her hair and the crystal light shining in her eyes that reflected all the colours around her, just like his eyes. He felt for a moment like the most beautiful creature on earth just for knowing there could be any similarity between them. There was a certain happiness in the smile she offered back that stopped his heart; _just let me lie,_ he though, _just let me lie down in the snow forever, just you and me paused like this forever._ His hands shook with more than cold, frightened by the force of his own feeling and then she was there, taking them, keeping him still and it was good, this stillness, with the heart beating like a battle playing out across these fields, blood drenching the winter snow. He was kissing her and her heartbeat so strong against his chest, he could imagine the blood that rushed through her, beneath the skin, even through the cold of her cheek when he brushed it with his own. Her blood, his blood, invisible red on a backdrop of stained snow. He whispered a curse when their lips parted, lust slipping out between his lips.

“I need you.”

She did not have to ask to know how.

“Here?” she blinked at him – “Now?”

“Yes,” he could barely speak – “ _Yes._ I – I’ve –”

“You’ve wanted this forever,” she finished, he wondered if she could really hear his thoughts, sometimes he half thought he knew hers, as though they were twins, inside each other’s heads. She was right, he was not quite sure how she knew. He wanted it with a need that went far beyond the aching pulse of his cock, had thought about it more times than he could imagine, ever since the bodies in the snow, but it had been her, lying out in the snow for him, always her.

“It’s cold.” It was not a real objection; he could see her eyes darken and knew the light they reflected now had to be his own darkness.

“I don’t care,” he almost growled it. She lowered herself into the fallen snow as though it were into a bath, arms reaching to draw him down. He did not fall into them gently, like when they were in bed, not this time. He took her wrists, pinning them either side of her head in the snow. Her breath was like steam against his face. He let go of her arms to scrabble fiercely at her dress, almost tearing at her in his need to touch her skin. In the end he opened her to the waist, skirts pushed up after a fight he was too determined not to win. She made his head spin like this, pale skin and red satin, her skin as soft and cold as the snow, but she was warm when he put his hand between her legs and she could not have thought about the cold when he slammed himself inside her.

There were fairy tales in her head, she thought of a wolf and a girl in a red dress and he was like an animal tearing into her now, hungry enough to swallow her whole. He had never been so brutal, so savage, and her nails raked rips into the back of his shirt when she scratched back. She had avoided doing this outside her whole life, ever since that appalling first time. But there was a fairy tale to carry her now and a wolf who was her prince all at the same time. She had always known he could save her, at least in little ways. She did not turn her face into the earth this time but looked up at the white sky overhead. The sky looked no different from the ground with all the white and she was flying like a bird through the snow flakes even whilst rutting like a beast in the snow on the edge of the trees.

The picture in her head was so beautiful she was aroused even at the idea of herself. Strange to be able to see the both of them from outside as well as feeling every thrust and bite and scratch so viscerally, everything all at once. She snarled back, bit back, teeth in his neck as he growled out all these years of lust inside her and even without the stimulation she normally needed she was coming just from this, the shudders taking over her body and surprising her, her cunt clenching around him and the curses flying from her mouth in exclamations of ecstasy and surprise as she came again and again, cradled in the snow, held up by the sky and somewhere in it all he was flooding her with heat and the hot and the cold kept her shaking all the longer.

Afterwards she could not stand and he fell beside her in the snow, both of them, hand in hand, looking up at the sky and wondering how legs worked. The world spun as though they had been spinning themselves around and around and they looked at each other, moving together and smiled weakly, heads buzzing in the cold and the sunlight. They laughed when they both struggled to stand back up; he managed it first, pulling her up and brushing the snow off her back as much as he could, grinning at her, unapologetic and without any trace of the guilty look she often caught in his eyes in the aftermath.

They walked back hand in hand, looking over their shoulders at the blood red snow angels they had left behind. At the doorway they threw snowballs, shrieking at each other, laughing like children with the sun going down behind them.

She was a little less afraid of the outside after that.

__x__

**So….a little bit magical healing cock but hopefully not too much so? Also yeah I know I did a snowy scene recently but I’ve had this one in mind for a while and also it’s now snowing here so I couldn’t not! :-)**


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